The Shadows and the Roses: The Awakening
by Siara Brandt
Summary: Thrown together on a desperate flight, will Beth and Daryl survive on their own? In a world shadowed by death and violence will they be able to overcome their own personal fears and find that something blooms in the darkness in spite of it all?
1. Chapter 1

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

_**Chapter**__** 1**_

Still breathing hard, Beth exhaled an audible stream of air. With a trembling hand she pushed back a pale lock of sweat-dampened hair and sat down numbly, staring blindly out the window at a sunset she didn't see. Her fingers tightened around the bloody knife still in her hand, convulsively squeezing the handle as she tried to get her tumultuous feelings under control. But it wasn't easy to turn things off just like that.

That had been close. Far too close. They'd run a gauntlet of walkers more vicious and more aggressive than any she had ever seen. They'd grabbed her. They'd pushed her down into the dirt, but thankfully she hadn't been bitten or scratched. Though why that mattered she didn't know. Not if, as Rick had told them, they were already infected. Maybe he'd been wrong about that. He'd been wrong about a lot of things.

They were safe at the moment, finally, but her body refused to obey her repeated orders to relax. She was still on high alert, watching for any sign of further attacks, while Daryl-

Daryl was already back to being Mr. Lone Wolf with his frankly-my-dear-I-never-did-give-a-damn attitude. Which could be maddening at times. Like now.

As she watched him set his crossbow against the wall, her eyes raked him slowly. So much for clean clothes. They'd changed only hours ago, but Daryl's grey T-shirt, sticking damply to the sweat on his skin, was already torn and blood-stained, as was hers. His boots and faded jeans were mud-splattered from another desperate flight through the woods. A grueling flight that had about done her in, but he'd been relentless in putting distance between them and- And something back there. Something that had made him feel like he was justified in taking some desperate risks.

She turned back to the window and closed her eyes, still struggling to slow her heavy breathing and gather what little strength she had left. Precious little of that remained, she knew. Her body had reached its limit. Her lungs hurt with every breath she took in and the muscles in her legs burned like fire. They must have traveled miles. And every one of those miles had been through some of the roughest terrain she'd ever seen. As if it wasn't enough that they had to fight walkers, it appeared that now there was another threat out there, perhaps an even deadlier one. But only Daryl knew what it was.

When she was able to speak, she asked, "What aren't you telling me?"

Daryl ignored her question. No surprise there. He didn't even look at her as he searched the cabin for food and drink and whatever other useful items he might find. It was his usual habit. For a moment she herself was distracted by the thought of something to quench her thirst. She had probably sweated out a gallon of fluids and she felt as dry as a desert, like even her blood was drying up in her veins.

But she was nothing if not relentless. She tried again. "What did you see out there?" She had a right to know what they were up against. He wasn't doing her any favors by keeping her in the dark.

"Nothing," he muttered, evading any kind of direct answer. He had finished searching all the kitchen cabinets and did, thank goodness, find several bottles of water. He handed one to her and she immediately drank most of it down. But when he turned to go back outside, her voice halted him at the door.

"You're lying."

Hell, Daryl thought, blowing out a sudden, frustrated breath of his own. She wasn't going to let this go. No surprise there. She had to be the stubbornest damnfemale he'd ever met.

He straightened and turned back to the room, sighing deeply as if half surrendering to her. But it wasn't a complete surrender. With both hands he pushed the long, dark strands of his hair back from his face and tried to give her the coldest look he knew how, even while he knew he probably wasn't fooling her. She had an annoying habit of being able to see right through him.

She had him trapped just like a deer in headlights. With nothing more than those big doe eyes. She softened her tone, probably hoping that would help him open up to her. But her words were still an accusation. "Why did you have to manhandle me like that back there? I hurt my ankle. And you practically tore the shirt off my body when you dragged me down into that ravine. See? The thorns tore me to pieces." She held both arms out towards him to make sure he knew the damage he had done.

"Because," came his drawling reply as he looked up from the scratches. "When I can't persuade you, I have to drive you. And in case you hadn't noticed, I was trying to save your ass back there."

She was still waiting for a better explanation, tilting her head in that way she had, silently challenging him as if he owed her some kind of explanation.

"All right. You want to know what I saw in that barn?" He didn't want to argue with her. He decided that the only thing to do here was to give her a minimum of information and shock her into letting it be. "I saw dead bodies. Not the walking dead kind, but people like _us_ that had been murdered, bled out and hung up like something in a butcher shop."

"Like us?" she echoed in a ghost of a voice, the shock he had expected to see coming to life in her eyes.

"No one I recognized," he said quickly. As he suddenly realized what else was in those eyes, he immediately tried to put her fears to rest.

"Why- " She began, trying to reason it through in her own mind, but maybe still too exhausted to string her thoughts coherently together. She looked more done in than he had ever seen her. Like a wilted flower drooping in the heat.

"Why do you think?" he said more harshly than he intended. "Food is scarce."

Her eyes widened with the comprehension she would rather not have faced as she gave him a horrified look.

"So from now on," he continued in a dragged-out, deliberate tone. "We're going to have to be- even more vigilant. And- " he added, his voice lowering to a deeper rasp, a no-nonsense, accusing one. "When I say stay put, I mean stay put. You almost got both of us killed back there when you started second guessing me."

_More_ vigilant? She thought. Was that even possible? They were in a continual state of high-alert as it was. They never let their guard down. Even when they slept.

Daryl knew he ought to cut her some slack. He had been brutal with her. Both physically and emotionally. Partly out of fear for her safety. Partly out of habitual cussedness. But she needed to learn to obey him without questioning him first, if they were going to have any chance of survival at all. Maybe it came down to trust. He knew she struggled with it. Same as he did. Trusting someone had its risks.

"I wasn't trying to second guess you. I _had_ to look for you. How could I know that you weren't killed, or that you didn't need my help?" she asked as she continued to watch him with those innocent, wide-open eyes. She still didn't get it. The women's lib crap didn't cut it out here. She had two choices. She could learn that from him, or she could learn that from experience. Unfortunately, experience could prove to be deadly.

He stared back at her, saw her watching him intently from beneath her lashes. He also noted that her hands were trembling, and that the knife was still in her hands, was still dark with blood. Her clothes, too, were splattered with it. She looked like a warrior that had just done battle but wasn't sure if the fighting was over yet.

She had courage. He gave her that. She had demonstrated more than her share of bravery time and time again. She had even saved his life on more than one occasion. But he wished he could give her back the life she had once known, the one she had been cheated out of. He wished he could take away the shadows that haunted her eyes. For the first time in years, maybe in his lifetime, he felt stirrings of tenderness and compassion rise up within him, emotions that he had never allowed before, emotions that he had thought these last brutal years had ruthlessly driven out of him. It took him by surprise. And it was not comfortable, he found, allowing himself to feel those things. Not only was it uncomfortable, he thought grimly. It was dangerous. Yielding to such sentiments would be a mistake, would be a weakness. And they could not afford weakness of any kind. Not now. Not in this world.

But he admitted, too, if only inwardly, that a passion to protect her had worked its way into his soul and that it refused to be dislodged, despite his best efforts to do so. He would protect her, with his life if that's what it took. He knew this as deeply as he could know a thing. For now, however, he kept that as his own little secret.

"How are you feeling? You need more water?" he asked with more solicitude than he had intended, yielding apparently for a moment to that gentler side that lately he seemed to have more and more trouble hiding.

"Like I just got dragged through a wilderness by a mountain lion who intends to make me his next meal," she replied with a subtly ironic tilt at one corner of her mouth. Ah, he thought to himself, there it is. Her normal resiliency was returning. She looked down then, as if only now becoming aware of the knife still clutched in her hand. She dipped her head further to look at the blood stains on her clothing.

The late afternoon light, sifting through the window of the cabin, was a deep tint of yellow which turned her hair into a blaze of shimmering gold. In spite of the blood stains, she looked- almost angelic with the light behind her like that. Even with the knife. He found himself distracted for a moment. He shook his head slightly, frowning in annoyance at the distraction. He knew better. He just had to remind himself to stay on track every now and then. That was all.

"You need to learn to listen to me," he said, a new harshness purposely creeping into his voice. "We have to do things on my terms." She needed to understand this, and he was the only one who could make sure that she did.

Unperturbed, she studied him for a moment. "You mean I need to learn how to _obey_ you," she said very quietly without taking her gaze from his.

He met the challenge and stared back at her, not flinching either, ignoring the obvious scorn he detected in her voice. "If you want to put it that way," he drawled slowly.

"Because you're the man?"

"Because I'm the man," he replied as if that settled it.

And because, he added silently, she was young and he was much more experienced than she was at living a dangerous life. Because she was too innocent to fully understand all the dangers out there. And because he'd about die if something happened to her. That sudden, spontaneous thought both surprised and disturbed him. He paused and shifted his weight slightly. What was he going to do with her?

"Any objections?" he asked, now softly challenging her.

She didn't argue although that's just what he had come to expect from her. She kept her gaze averted and gave a noncommittal shake of her head, which told him nothing. _His_ gaze narrowed slightly as he continued to study her face. Had he gotten through to her? Or was she saving this particular fight for another time? He was exhausted. She had to be dead on her feet. Maybe she wasn't up to an argument at the moment. But like any other woman, he suspected that she was fully capable of putting an issue on the back burner until it was time to bring it up again. Women tended to save up ammunition that way and Beth was no different.

"Did you get a good look at the bad guys back at that farm?" she asked, switching tactics.

She had caught him off guard. It wasn't what he expected her to ask.

And _bad guys?_ That sounded so like her. She had a childlike, simplistic way of looking at the world sometimes. Which just proved his point. In some ways she was still an innocent.

"A closer look than I wanted to," he assured her, hoping that would satisfy her.

Maybe if Little Miss Innocence had seen the group of men for herself, he thought as he continued to stare down at her, she'd be more worried.

"Do you think they knew we were there? And do you think they would- bother us?"

He stared back at her. Oh, yeah. He had no doubt they would _bother_ them. But bother was an understatement. One look had been enough to tell him what kind of men they could be dealing with if they weren't careful. He wanted to avoid a confrontation at all costs. He knew very well what such men were capable of, even in the best of times. And these were about as far from the best of times as you could get. If they got their hands on Beth- He cut those thoughts short. He wasn't going to let that happen. Not while he had breath left in his body.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "What else did you see in that barn?"

He surprised her by giving her an immediate answer. "Trust me. You don't want to know."

Her eyebrows lifted, but to his surprise, she didn't pursue it. As for Beth, she wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was he was trying so hard to keep from her. Something in Daryl's eyes and in the tautness of his jaw muscles kept her from questioning him further. He had seen something terrible. She was sure of it. But she'd been through enough for one day. She didn't know if she could handle anything else at the moment. And she knew from experience that wild horses couldn't drive Daryl if he didn't want to be driven.

A covert glance at Beth's downcast eyes told Daryl that she was probably imagining all kinds of scenarios for the blanks that he had not filled in for her. He wished he could put her fears to rest, but the brutal truth was that he couldn't do that.

"Imagine the Governor," he said, careful to keep any trace of emotion from his voice. "But a lot worse." No need for her to know more than that.

Daryl was, Beth suspected, feigning an indifference now that he didn't feel. "Some people are like animals," he went on. "They don't think like we do. They have their own set of rules." He knew another fleeting moment of regret when he saw the worry finally register in her eyes. She should be worried, he knew. And yet, in spite of that, he tried to reassure her. "But we'll head out when we can and find a better place."

"And where would that be?" she asked.

"Anywhere else. It's too dangerous here."

"I'm getting hungry," he said, changing the subject and turning to avoid looking at her. He didn't want to see the disappointment he knew would be there. He knew what she would be thinking. Once again her hopes of settling down in one place had been taken away from her without warning. He knew that more than anything else, she wanted a place to call home. A safe place where they didn't have to continuously be on the run. Hell, he wanted that, too. But this place wasn't it.

"Well, I always did want to travel," she muttered half to herself as she got up from her chair. "For as long as I can remember, I thought I wanted more out of life than what the farm offered." She sighed deeply. "I just wasn't thinking _this_."

"None of us was thinking this."

"I do miss the farm," she admitted. "You get to know a house by how it feels in all the different seasons." She paused and sighed. "You know. Summer feels different than winter. And spring feels different than fall. But they all feel like home. It seems like a lifetime ago since I was there. And a lifetime since I stopped believing in happy endings," she added.

He had paused to stare out the big bay window. His arms were folded against his chest and he seemed, for the moment, to be lost in his own thoughts.

"Did you see something," she asked in alarm, coming closer and standing on her toes to see over his shoulder. She was immediately surrounded by his familiar masculine scent. Scarcely aware of what she was doing, she leaned a little closer, drawn like a moth to a flame, resisting the urge to lay her cheek against the comforting strength of his broad back. It was a dangerous and inexplicable yearning, but it was always like this lately whenever she was close to him. She had to make a conscious effort to keep from reacting to something instinctual, something deep inside her that threatened to melt away every shred of common sense she had ever possessed. It frightened her, sometimes, to realize just how strong the need to be close to him had become.

While she was imagining what his reaction would be if she were to give in to the growing fascination, though it was a completely unreasonable one, to lay her hands caressingly on his back and explore the muscles there, he shook his dark head. His voice rumbled deep in his chest. "No."

She tried to remember what her question had been and shook herself mentally with a re-newed determination that he should never guess her weakness. "Are we safe here?" she asked, wishing she had not sounded so breathless, giving herself some distance, and wondering, dear heavens, why being close to Daryl always caused such a disruption inside her.

"I think so," he answered. "At least for the night."

It was the best he could give her. She was disillusioned by life, he knew. Just as he was. How could she feel any other way? Both their lives had become a prison sentence of just struggling to stay alive, along with a knife blade in their hearts, twisted again and again, every time they lost someone they cared about. Even though he himself had tried not to be caught off guard any more, he wasn't always successful. Losses came suddenly and without warning on such a continuous basis that life had also became an ongoing struggle against hopelessness. Just like her, he knew very well that not everything had a happy ending, that life was fragile at best and that violent death and unspeakable brutality were routine occurrences now.

He was hungry as a wolf and knew she must be, too. It was a safer distraction and so he concentrated on getting dinner ready. It was a lot less disruptive than thinking about Beth, especially when she was as close to him as she had been a minute ago. He had felt her warmth seep right through his clothes as she stood behind him. He would have preferred being alone at the moment so he could re-group, but she walked across the room to help him with the food. Luckily, the cabin had a small supply of canned goods so they wouldn't go hungry tonight. He handed her a can opener and started looking through the cans.

"I stopped believing in happily-ever-afters," she began conversationally as she stood beside him. "Ever since- " She broke off abruptly.

He glanced down and finished for her. "Ever since the world got turned upside down and you lost everyone you ever cared about."

His blunt statement caused her to swallow heavily. But she nodded. She used to find it annoying to no end that he had an almost uncanny ability to anticipate her unspoken words and thoughts. At the moment, however, she found it almost comforting. Maybe because it was the closest she would ever get to sharing her thoughts with another human being.

"I still have _you_," she said under her breath without looking up.

He merely grunted and handed her a can of peaches.

"So you have a plan ready for tomorrow?" she asked as they sat down at the table.

Daryl picked up his fork and speared a wedge of peach. Going along with his plans was the closest she ever came to "obeying" him. She always cautiously maintained some semblance of independence, even if it was only a token of independence. Relying on someone else was risky business in this world. You could find yourself alone and on your own at a moment's notice and the emotional toll could be devastating.

Beth wasn't like Carol who would blindly follow a man even if he treated her badly. Beth couldn't abide abuse of any kind. She'd set off on her own more than once after he had been brutal with her. He knew now that she had been setting boundaries and he had a growing respect for her for that. She wasn't about to trade in her self-respect because she was afraid of being alone.

The truth was that deep down Beth could be fiercely independent if she had to be, and she wasn't bluffing about it. He knew with a certainty that if he stepped over the line, she'd leave him in a heartbeat and go off on her own for good. Some things had to be on her terms. Which was fine with him. He did a lot of demanding himself.

"Same plan as always," he answered her as he ate. "We expect the worst and hope it doesn't happen. We do things right. We do things smart. And that means," he reminded her as he pointed the fork in her direction for emphasis. "That you do what I tell you to do without any questions asked."

She nodded slightly, without even a syllable of protest.

He lifted one dark brow as he stared at her across the table. "That easy?"

She looked up from her plate. "What?"

"I'm wondering why it was so easy to convince you to listen to me."

"It's no big deal." She shrugged blue-clad shoulders. "It's better than listening to Rick. Rick got a lot of people killed because of his decisions. He even got a horse killed."

This was what he wanted from her, needed from her, and he knew that she had to make a huge effort to put so much faith in him. She had to sacrifice her natural inclinations. Inclinations that had been taught to her in a much different world. But conflicting thoughts were still warring within him. A part of him fought against being responsible for her. The burden, at times, seemed too much for him to bear. In the past, perhaps, he would have turned his back on her without a second thought. But that wasn't going to happen now. Something had changed him. _She_ had changed him.

After they had eaten and darkness had fallen, he stretched himself out on the carpeted floor before the fireplace. He had let her have the sofa right next to him. "Let's get some sleep," he said after a prolonged yawn. He stretched out leisurely, feeling confident that he had taken enough precautions to keep them safe for the night. It wasn't too uncomfortable on the floor with a pile of blankets under him, he decided. And they wouldn't be cold. They had endured plenty of cold, teeth-chattering nights already where they only had each other's body heat to keep from freezing to death. It was something he especially hated. Sleepless nights spent shivering out in the open without a blanket didn't prepare you for what the day ahead might hold. But they should rest well tonight.

He laced his hands behind his head and stared up at the shadows in silence for a while, then said, "Don't worry about tomorrow."

"It doesn't do any good to worry," he heard her reply in the darkness. "I won't let myself be afraid," she said as if she had the ability to make that choice and had resigned herself to whatever lay ahead. What was forced bravado and what was simply resignation he had no way of knowing. But he already knew she had guts and an inner strength that had helped her survive this far.

They had both seen enough to know that nothing was certain and that nothing, absolutely nothing, could be taken for granted. Life was a daily struggle for survival on the most basic level. For food, for shelter, for the basic necessities. They didn't have time to think much beyond that.

"Those bad men- " she said quietly. "Do you think they're lost because of their choices?"

"Lost?"

"You know."

"Their choice is to catch people and then kill them. They've put a lot of effort into it. So if that's makes them lost, then I guess they are."

"How do you know they've put so much effort into it?" she asked.

"I saw signs," he replied, hoping she would not question him further.

"You know," she began in the darkness. "A lot of people will probably get caught in their trap. Like we almost did." And then she added, borrowing a phrase from him. "I'm just saying."

Daryl didn't reply. He knew too much about the kind of men who were responsible for the gruesome things he had seen in the barn. He wouldn't tell her about the shackled, beaten thing that had once been a human being. Or the woman who had also obviously been so brutalized that it had sickened him.

The lines about his mouth were tight with unexpressed emotion in the darkness. And Beth could not see it in the darkness, but there was a murderous glint in his eyes as he recalled all he had seen. She was right, he thought to himself. A lot of people would get caught in their trap. Had there been any survivors, he knew he would be wrestling right now with a decision to go rescue them. But there hadn't been any. And he realized that that was probably for the best. Just as much for them as for him. As for Beth, he would have to leave her behind, alone and on her own, if he did go back. But there was no need for that now.

He forced himself to concentrate on the best plan of action for the days ahead. He needed to be thorough. He needed to concentrate on keeping them both alive, to be alert to every sign in the woods, no matter how insignificant. Not just because of some built-in survival instinct, but also because Beth needed him. Without him . . .

He stopped himself from dwelling further on his fears. That wasn't going to do either one of them any good. He reminded himself that he had to be focused. There was no room for error. No room for hesitation or uncertainty. Not when there was the worst kind of predator out there. Human predators.

As he stared up into the darkness, he told himself something else. He had to be the biggest fool that ever lived. He closed his eyes, telling himself one more time that he ought to have more sense. A hell of a lot more sense.

Being attracted to Beth was way beyond stupid. It was dangerous and it wasn't like they didn't have enough danger in their lives right now. In fact, it seemed like there was danger enough for a hundred lifetimes. He chided himself for his weakness. Because that's how he saw it. As a weakness. One neither of them needed right now.

"I'll get over this," he vowed silently to himself as he buried his desire for her into a dark, hidden part of his soul. 

* * *

To Be Continued


	2. Chapter 2

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

_**Chapter 2  
**_

Beth's face was still stinging from the brutal blow to her face.

"That was your first lesson," the man growled beside her. His hand was still raised threateningly. "Keep still or I'll give you another one."

She knew instinctively that she could expect no mercy from the owner of that voice and that the man, whoever he was, was fully capable of making good on his threat. His body was half turned as if he was intently looking out the rear window at something behind them. At the moment he was concentrating on that instead of on her. He finally gave a satisfied snort and turned around.

Everything had happened so fast. The dark car pulling up in a cloud of dust beside her. The door being flung wide open. And then a man leaping upon her and ruthlessly forcing her into the backseat of the car.

She was trying her best to clear her mind and to come up with some kind of escape plan before any more time got away from her, before they got farther away. She had tried to fight them, to no avail, and right now the car was moving too fast for her to try and jump out without serious injury to herself. In any case, she had no doubt the men would immediately stop the car and hunt her down.

The man in the front seat was driving almost recklessly, swerving from one side of the road to the other, taking the curves entirely too fast. The car hit a deep rut and she was flung like a ragdoll against the door beside her. She couldn't keep from crying out in pain as the door handle dug deeply into her side.

There were two men. The driver and a man who sat next to her in the back seat. The man beside her was a hulking giant of a man. His facial features had been blurred and indistinct in the shadowed interior of the car. But those features came more into focus as he leaned towards her and peered closely at her face.

"We should keep this one for ourselves," he spoke up, talking to the driver. "Who would know?"

"You mean take her back to the farm instead of to Terminus?" the driver asked.

"That's just what I mean."

Even in the dimness of the car, Beth couldn't help but see that the man beside her looked at her with such evil intent that she couldn't help cringing as far away from him as possible.

"No one has to know," the man went on, trying to convince the driver. "She can be our little secret."

The men continued their discussion like she wasn't even there. The driver mostly grunted his answers. He didn't agree. Nor did he disagree. He also didn't slow his breakneck pace down the dark road. More than once Beth had to grit her teeth against the bone-jarring bumps.

"We could say that she was eaten and that there was nothing left of her," she heard the man beside her say. "Hell, Hitch, who could prove anything different happened?" He continued to watch her, as if anticipating the effect his words had on her.

"Yeah. We could say that," came Hitch's remark from the front seat. "It's not like her boyfriend back there could tell anyone a different story," he pointed out. "He's got to be dead by now."

She refused to believe it. Daryl couldn't be dead. She had to get back there and _know_. She had to help him if he needed help. She had to let him know she was still alive even though she was getting farther and farther away from him by the moment.

The man beside her was thoughtfully silent for a long time. "Who says we have to obey Gareth's orders," he said. "It's not like we're his private army and don't have a say in anything we do."

"Maybe he'll let you have 'er," Hitch suggested with a quick glance over his shoulder.

"Not this one," the other man said soberly as he continued to watch her. "He won't give her up. He'll want her at Terminus."

Beth's heart was pounding hard in her chest and sending blood pumping hotly through her veins. A surge of adrenaline made her reckless. "What is Terminus?" she asked breathlessly. "And who is Gareth?"

"Terminus?" her back-seat captor echoed. "Terminus is a dead end. I can promise you, you'll like staying with me a whole lot better.

"And Gareth? Hell, you don't want to find out. He runs Terminus. It's the same with every house within miles of there. He runs it all." As if he wanted to make sure she understood, he leaned closer to her. "People are herded and trapped like cattle, and then they are rounded up and taken to Terminus for a one-way trip."

"People? Not walkers?"

"Walkers?" the man echoed. "Oh, you mean the dead bastards. No, we don't have any use for _them_."

"So you- you round up living people."

"It's not as hard as you would think. People are desperate enough, and usually stupid enough, to fall for anything. Look how easy it was to catch you and your boyfriend in one of our little traps."

_You're at an advantage if people underestimate you,_ Daryl had told her. _If they believe you're not a threat, they won't be so watchful. In some situations that can make all the difference._

Beth knew she had to keep the man talking to give herself time for a plan. "You mean the funeral home was a trap?"

Maybe they should have expected that. Daryl had been suspicious of the place at first. He had only thought of staying there because of her, she knew. And because of her, they had fallen into a trap. A deadly one.

"You got it," came the bland reply. "People are nothing to Gareth. Hitler wanted to take over the world. To a man with the same kind of ambition, it's not so hard to pick up the pieces of this broken world and carve out your own little piece of territory."

"Where men like this Gareth are the king?" She was thinking about the governor. Look where underestimating him had gotten them. She must be careful, very, very careful, not to repeat the same mistake. Power-hungry men were dangerous men.

"Why not? There are plenty of people left in this world who are so scared and so tired of running and starving that they'll do anything to survive. And the truth is that most of 'em want to be led. They don't want to do the leading. Monkey see, monkey do. They see others doing something, they figure it's OK for them, too. Gives them a kind of permission they wouldn't normally give themselves.

"Gareth offers lost souls food and a safe place to live, a code to live by, and even his own perverted brand of religion. There's something for everyone." He chuckled humorlessly, cynically in the darkness. "For others," he went on cryptically. "There are other lures that keep them in line."

"You are from this Terminus, too?" she dared to ask, had to ask.

"I wouldn't live there," came the answer from the darkness. "There are too many restrictions for men like us. Right, Hitch? We live on the outside, like soldiers guarding the outer walls. Gareth doesn't want us there anyway. He wouldn't risk it. He knows we'd be- a disruption and that we wouldn't stand for the kind of control those people live under behind their fences and their brick walls.

"They think the walls and the fences are there to keep them safe, but Gareth has his own reasons for those things. If the people don't do what they're told, if they try to leave, they die. Gareth makes sure they know that and, more importantly, he sees to it that they always remember what disobedience can lead to. In a way, they're confined like mindless cattle, too. Only they do the choosing. It's their choice to live that way."

Beth listened with growing comprehension. And horror.

"As for the ones that insist on leaving, Gareth has some of them taken to the funeral home and preserved there. Every once in a while he takes groups of his people up there to mourn. And to remind them what will happen if they forget to do as they're told. If they try to leave, they'll be just like those rotting corpses up there. Or worse.

"He's clever. I'll give him that. He's convinced them that if they try to eat anything that he hasn't personally blessed and sanctioned, then they'll become infected. And they believe him because it's what they want to believe. It eases their conscience, helps them sleep at night. Yeah, he's got a regular cult going on up there. And Gareth? He sees himself as a Messiah in the middle of an apocalypse."

In the darkness, Beth caught the predatory gleam in the man's eyes as his gaze roamed boldly over her. "But I'm saving you from all that. And I expect you to start showing me a little gratitude. Just like Gareth shows gratitude for all that I do for him.

"Pull over to the side of the road for a little bit," he told the driver.

When the car had finally rolled to a stop, the man opened a small box that had been setting on the seat beside him. Beth watched as he withdrew a hypodermic needle. He stuck the needle in his arm, leaned back and waited with his eyes closed for the drug, whatever it was, to take effect. When he fixed her with his eyes again, he said chillingly, "Your turn."

Beth was so terrified that it suddenly seemed that there was no breath left in her body. Neither was there warmth. It felt like ice water flowed through her veins. As the man ran the back of his fingers along her cheek, she instinctively turned her face and flinched from his touch. He acted swiftly and without warning and grabbed her face roughly in one hand, then twisted his body so that it loomed threateningly over hers. "Second lesson," he gritted between clenched teeth. "You don't pull away from me. Ever."

* * *

To Be Continued...


	3. Chapter 3

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

_**Chapter 3**_

_Two days earlier_

From the porch overhang, Beth looked out over a deep hollow that was softened by the rising evening mist. The mist drifted in ghostlike layers between the fringed branches of the pine trees that swept up to become a dense forest on all sides of the cabin. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the sweet scent of pine. She gripped the porch railing in both hands, leaning a little forward, a dreamy expression on her face.

She sat down on the porch swing and found herself thinking about Daryl. Again. There had been something deeper in his eyes today. It was something that had helplessly drawn her own gaze time and time again. She had caught him watching her several times when he thought she was not looking.

He was not sure of her yet, she supposed. He was wondering whether she would instantly obey him or not. But she couldn't put his uncertainty to rest. The time would come soon enough when she was put to the test. And then he would know for sure.

She opened the first pages of the journal in her lap. It had been a gift from Daryl. He had presented it to her gruffly and without explanation. Which was so like him. He was so afraid of having anyone, even her, think that he could be kind or thoughtful in any way, as if that somehow made him vulnerable. Maybe in the past acts of kindness had not turned out well for him. And maybe as a result he had learned to keep protective walls around his heart. But this was not the past. The past was dead and buried and its ghosts needed to be laid to rest.

She treasured the book perhaps more than she should, she knew. Maybe because Daryl had given it to her. Would she write herself onto the pages? If she had the courage. And the honesty. For a long time she had desperately needed a place to pour all her emotions. And this was the best place. Because a book couldn't judge or criticize. But mostly because a book couldn't die.

The truth was that she was so peacefully happy about the gift because Daryl had given it to her without her expecting it. She had not mentioned wanting a journal. She had not even hinted that she wanted one. But yet again, he had anticipated her needs and her wishes. To her, this meant that this was who he really was inside and that he was willing to risk exposing his vulnerability to her. It touched her deeply seeing this gentle, but brave side of him. Because she had no doubt whatsoever that it took a tremendous amount of bravery on his part to get past the lessons of his past. They were building something together, a friendship perhaps, in which they anticipated each other's needs and each other's wishes without having to express those things in words. And that, she knew, was a good thing.

She opened the small book and on the first page, she wrote: _ The old life is part of the past. We live in the middle of a wilderness, just like pioneers who have to be strong in the face of many hardships. I did not think there were such things anymore, but today was nearly a perfect day . . . _

She wrote on for a time, getting it all down on paper, then looked up as Daryl appeared in the doorway. A bath, not to mention a change of clothes, had transformed him. She realized with some surprise that he had been making an effort with his appearance lately. Maybe because in an angry moment she had told him that he was more like a scarecrow than a human being. She had meant that in a Wizard-of-Oz kind of way, as in he had no heart, but she suspected that he had thought she had meant his physical appearance.

She was sorry for what she had said, for the truth was that he had stayed by her, risking his life sometimes. Many times. He could have left her behind and saved himself a lot of trouble. Instead he had kept her by his side, taking the time to show her how to gather food from the forest, and how to track things and read signs in the woods. Of course it had been like pulling teeth to get him to teach her those things at first. He really must have been a devoted loner in his previous life. Eventually, he had become comfortable with what he called "the unfortunately-necessary job of helping her catch up on her woeful lack of a practical education."

In a short period of time, he had taught her a great deal about survival. He was always testing out potential weapons. He made her carry not one knife in her boot safely, but two. A can of pepper spray, he insisted, was a necessity. He made her promise to carry one on her at all times.

"Does it really work on walkers?" she had asked.

"Walkers?" he had echoed. "I'd better not catch you trying to use pepper spray on a walker."

He had not wanted to leave the cabin until they were well rested, well fed and up to putting a full day of travel behind them. He did tell her that he was certain that the "bad guys" were fully capable of tracking them and that they would have to be very cautious when they did leave. As cautious as they had to be in the populated areas they passed through.

It was a war-torn world where entire cities had been burned to the ground. The smell of smoke was everywhere, even after all this time. The scorched debris smoldered endlessly. Small towns, too, were sometimes mere burned out shells and they were always a risk. But bigger cities were even more dangerous and were avoided at all costs wherever possible. Smaller towns were always safer, even if they were eerily silent with no traffic, no school children playing, and no church bells ringing.

But they were comfortably settled here in this remote log cabin, far from any other dwellings with only a vast wilderness surrounding them like a hedge between them and the rest of the world. It was a beautiful setting, a tranquil, serene place where she thought she might have been happy staying forever. But they had to move on. As unfortunately they always did.

Earlier, they had bathed in the pond not far from the cabin and changed into clothes that they had found packed away in boxes in the cabin. Right now Daryl had pulled up a porch chair and was looking at his reflection in a little mirror that he had propped up on the porch railing. He began spreading lather on his chin and cheeks as he prepared to shave. It looked just like he was frosting a cake, she mused as she watched him, her journal forgotten for the moment. She continued to watch him shave with a kind of fascination, held by his seriousness as he leaned forward, completely absorbed in the task. He turned his face to one side and scraped the razor slowly through the white foam, then did the same on the other side. She had never seen a man shave before. At least she had never watched so openly.

She saw him glance at her in the mirror for an instant and for some unaccountable reason she immediately felt the blood rise to her cheeks. She quickly dipped her head to her journal and busied herself with her pen once again. She didn't dare look at Daryl after that.

Daryl's frown remained in place as he rinsed the last traces of lather from his face. He had shifted his gaze to see Beth watching him in the mirror. When she realized that _he_ was watching _her_, her gaze had quickly skittered away, but not before he had seen the rapt, almost mesmerized, attention with which she had been regarding him.

Why she suddenly looked so embarrassed he had no idea. For crying out loud, the woman stood up to him like no man had ever stood up to him before. And she had no end of names that she called him when she was on her high horse. Stonehenge Man for one. The model for Mt. Rushmore for another. Which was better than being an insensitive, unfeeling jerk, he supposed. She used that one a lot. Sometimes, if she was mad enough, she just sputtered something incoherent. Most times she looked so damned serious when she was ranting at him that it was about all he could do to not burst out laughing. She'd stomp her foot and fix him with a lethal glare that would have withered most men. Even worse were the times when she would stop what she was doing and look up slowly with a low-voiced "What did you say?" Or when she would simply catch her breath, so wrought up that she couldn't find words to slay him no matter how hard she tried.

To his credit, he tried his hardest to maintain a stoic expression during such times, but sometimes- Sometimes it was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud at the outlandish descriptions she came up with. More than once, he'd had to walk away from her so she wouldn't see him laugh. And no doubt, if she ever suspected how much amusement she had provided him, she would show him no mercy.

But as he thought over their tempestuous relationship, his expression sobered. Something had changed between them in the past week or so. They had been sliding gradually into an easier relationship where they were getting more comfortable with each other. But there was something else. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Something that felt strangely like an electrical current in the air whenever they got too close to each other. He couldn't fathom it. He only knew that he had to do his damndest to keep her from knowing how she affected him. He also knew, he thought as his frown deepened, that she expected more from him than he had ever expected of himself. Or that anyone else had ever expected of him. Maybe that was part of it. The pressure of her expectations. But deep down he knew it was more than that. And there were times when he thought that she was feeling-

_Hell._

He was just fooling himself. She would think up a whole new vocabulary of names to describe him if she knew some of the things he was thinking. And none of them would be flattering.

_You old pervert. _

Yeah. He could imagine her spewing that one out.

He sighed like a man who knew he was in danger of losing his moorings in the middle of a stormy sea and couldn't do one damn thing to change it.

Best to go inside, he told himself, forcing himself not to look in her direction again. Out of sight, out of mind. He silently repeated the phrase, sincerely hoping that it would prove to be true.

But in the front room of the cabin, despite his best intentions, he found himself thinking about her again as he stared out the big bay window at the sunset reflected on the smooth surface of the pond. She had bathed in that pond earlier, and as he had kept watch, she had admonished him more than once to keep a close eye on the woods because she didn't want to be caught unaware while she was stark naked. His imagination had caught _him_ unaware as he sat with his back to her. He was imagining her stark naked and dripping wet behind him, lathered up with that sweet-smelling soap she'd found at the cabin because she did not, she had told him, want to take a bath just to end up smelling like fish and sea weed.

And so, armed with the soap, half a bottle of strawberry-scented shampoo and a whole assortment of toiletries from the cabin, she'd marched down the hillside and informed him that she was going to take a long, leisurely bath in the pond. Would he please keep watch.

To say that her quiet splashes and her sounds of pleasure had been a distraction was an understatement. After a few smothered squeals and gasps before she got used to the cold water, of course.

"This feels so good," she would exclaim behind him. And, "This must be what heaven feels like. I could stay in here forever."

In the end he couldn't resist taking a bath himself. She had been right. It did feel like heaven to wash off countless layers of gritty dirt and sweat. And now? Now he found himself wondering how he had gotten to the point where he lived just to see that smile on her face and hear the pleasure in her voice when he did something that pleased her. He was realizing, too, that he spent a good deal of his time thinking about a better world that he might build for her where he could keep her safe and happy, and not just on a temporary basis.

There had been a lot of clothes stored away in the cabin. Not just the rustic ones you might expect to see, but fancy clothes, too. After digging through the boxes, she had another one of her brilliant, unrealistic ideas. She suggested that they dress for dinner. At first he had shaken his head adamantly at her request. No way was he going to do that. But in the end he knew he could deny her nothing. So when she came out of the bedroom in a summer dress of some kind of soft blue material that floated around her like a cloud, he shouldn't have been so unprepared.

He had to stare at her transformation for a long time before he could recover. The change in her appearance had just about knocked the breath out of him. She had smiled, seeing that he was wearing the clothes she had picked out for him, too. Smiled maybe in part because he had done as she had requested. And maybe in part because she thought it was an improvement. No scarecrows today.

As she had passed through the room, she had looked critically at her reflection in the mirror, made a face and then said wistfully as she absently folded the blue folds of her dress, "It's been a long time since I felt like a princess."

There was no fairy godmother around and there was no ball to go to. And there sure as hell wasn't a prince in sight. But today, he decided, if she wanted to feel like a princess, well, hell- that's what she should do. She did look happy and content as if, for a moment at least, the world was not in shattered pieces around them and they were not bashing in the heads of decomposing corpses.

She swept past him and disappeared in one of the bedrooms. After she had reappeared and settled herself down on the sofa, he saw the colorful little bottles in her hands. She carefully lined them up on the coffee table before her, studying them with an intensity that drew his gaze.

Was she really thinking about painting her nails? Apparently she was, for she had already started the process. She propped one bare foot up on the coffee table and started stuffing wadded pieces of tissue between her toes. When that was done, she picked up one of the bottles, shook it vigorously and then devoted her attention to carefully applying the polish. When all ten nails were done, she sat back to admire the results.

In a world populated by the undead, only she could think about something like painting her nails. And be so serious about it.

She held her foot out and wiggled it in his direction. "Are you in love with this color, or what?"

He didn't answer her, just stared, while she started on her finger nails. "It's nice here, isn't it?" she sighed.

He nodded then realized that she couldn't see him, which was good because he was watching her with the same single-minded attention that a starving dog stares at a left-over steak bone.

But he agreed. It was nice. He grunted some kind of answer which seemed to satisfy her She nodded without having to look up.

That life could be this laid-back was a wonder to him. Just a few days ago he would never have believed that he could feel anything remotely good again, much less such a feeling of deep contentment over such a small thing as watching her paint her nails. It was, he realized, the same when she brushed her hair. Or when she sang. It was the sharing, he supposed, that drew him. The normalcy. The slow pace. The peace and quiet. The only sounds to disturb the deep silence were the bird songs in the trees outside. There was no threat hanging over their heads at the moment. No fighting. No disruptive drama that could turn deadly at a moment's notice as there had been when they'd been with the group. Desperate people tended to make desperate decisions, often selfish ones. Unfortunately, those decisions cast a ripple effect over everyone.

Till now, his own life had been harsh and shiftless. Selfish. Looking back, he was full of regrets. He had made no positive choices. He had always followed, good or bad, the decisions of others without question. And yet, a part of him had rebelled inwardly, had fought that prison of hopelessness that all his life had made him believe that he was nothing, that he had no choices, that his life didn't matter.

But she had changed all that. Maybe because his life mattered to her. Even the small things. She had the strange ability to make him look differently at the world, as if he was seeing everything for the first time. Through her eyes, perhaps.

He knew that tomorrow everything would change. Tomorrow they would leave this place and things would almost certainly go back to the way they were. He had to get his mind around that and accept it. This respite would not last, no matter how much he wanted it to. But for now, for as long as it did last, he would cherish every moment because the memory would be an anchor for him. He would remember this quiet time as long as he lived because never before had he felt so at peace or so alive.

She dragged him back, unresisting, out onto the porch again after she had finished her nails. "It's nicer out here," she told him. "We'll watch the sun go down." She sighed. "I think a porch has always been my favorite place to sit." She lifted her face and let the wind blow through her hair. The orange flowers of a trumpet vine were vibrant splashes of color behind her. "We should make the most of this while we can. Don't you think?"

He realized it was a question. He stared at her blankly for a moment, then answered her. "Yeah, sitting on a porch sipping on a cold beer sounds real good to me, too." He sat down in the porch chair beside her. "Too bad we don't have the beer."

She lifted her face, exposing the smooth column of her throat and the delicate line of her chin. Wild geese were soaring high overhead. Two huge V's of them against a cloudless sky of deep cerulean blue.

"They still fly south," she said so softly that it was like feathers brushing over him. She closed her eyes, completely oblivious to the effect she had upon him. For that he was thankful.

"What if _we_ migrated North?" she asked as if that thought had just occurred to her. "Maybe the walkers freeze solid in the cold up there. That's possible, isn't it?"

"How would we keep from freezing to death ourselves?"

"I don't know." She was thoughtful for a while before adding, "I'm just saying.

"To think," she went on, switching gears to a completely different train of thought. "That I used to find my life boring. Right now I'd give anything to have that boring life back. To hear the quiet sounds of conversation and laughter in the yard after church while I pick a big bouquet of flowers for the table. To smell supper cooking on Sunday afternoons." Her expression changed to a questioning one. "I wonder what day it is today."

He shook his head and shrugged wide shoulders. He didn't have a clue as to what day it was, either.

"We could go fishing sometime, somewhere, maybe cook up a catfish supper," he said because he didn't know what else to say to fill the sudden void of silence that had fallen between them. Why he should suddenly find silence so uncomfortable he didn't know. "You ever been?" he asked, waiting for her reply.

"Fishing? A few times. Way back in my boring lifetime. My cousins would drag me out to the pond."

He frowned down at the porch floor between his boots. "Well, if it bores you- "

"I didn't say it would bore me _now_," she said enigmatically as if there was a deeper meaning behind her words.

She drew a deep breath and released it slowly. "Everything else has stayed the same. The birds still migrate. The flowers still grow in spite of it all. The seasons change. Maybe we're supposed to learn something from that. Maybe it's a lesson that life does go on no matter what."

He was staring into the distance, apparently having no answers for her but listening all the same. She knew he was listening because every once in a while he nodded, agreeing with her. And she suddenly realized something else that she found amazing. That they were having an actual conversation. A long one. And it wasn't entirely one sided. A faint smile touched her lips.

"You're being pretty patient sitting there listening to me talk about nothing."

"Do I have any choice?" One corner of his mouth drew back into a half smile. A very lazy, very sexy smile. "Would you be quiet even if I told you to?"

Her answer was a low laugh. "No. Probably not." The sound of her laughter was such a simple thing, but it touched something deep inside him.

"You know," she went on. "You start out with all these hopes and dreams- You live in a safe, protected world, and then everything changes overnight. You can't prepare for it. You can't foresee what's coming. All you can do is react according to who you are inside."

As usual, he didn't comment, so she slanted a glance in his direction. "What are you thinking?" she asked right out.

_That I should find you some paints_, he thought to himself, _when we get to a town_.

Beth wanted to paint. She had told him that some time ago. What would she paint? he wondered. A landscape? A portrait? A bowl of fruit? Whatever it was, it wouldn't hurt to put some effort into finding her some paints. And brushes. It didn't have to be much.

"I'm thinking," he finally said, noting that her lips were parted as she waited for his reply, as if she were hanging on every word. The sunlight was touching her. It lit up one bare arm and spilled across part of the blue dress. "That we should leave the day after tomorrow."

"Don't you ever think about_ today_?" she asked softly. "Without worrying about tomorrow?"

"This won't last. You know that." He immediately regretted the harshness of his words, just as he hated the sadness that suddenly shadowed her eyes. But it was his duty to bring them both back to earth. Wasn't it?

She gave him a look that belied her years. "But we have till midnight at least? Right? That makes an entire day without- " She searched for the right word. "Disruption."

"Yes, Cinderella, we have till midnight."

She recovered her light-hearted mood with a speed that astounded him. She laughed at what he'd just said. Maybe because he'd called her Cinderella. Once again, it was a warm, rich sound that wove its magic around him. It got inside him, threatened to thaw something that had been frozen for an eternity. He should get up and walk away from her now. Again. That would be the smart thing to do. But he stayed. Trapped just like that struggling moth she had been so concerned with earlier, until she had safely freed it from the spider web. If only there was such a simple way to free him.

But he was caught just like that moth in her goodness. In her innocence. Those things still remained intact. Amazingly. She believed in more than she had a right to believe in after all she had been through. She still worried about doing the right thing. She still held onto that elusive concept of personal choice. Worried that she would take something that belonged to someone else. Worried that he would continue to be a victim to his past. Worried that the living, as well as the dead, died without dignity and a proper burial and without anyone to mourn over them.

She'd seen a dog once at a distance. It had been a scrawny, half-starved looking thing. She had tried to coax the dog into coming closer so she could feed it even though he had told her very firmly that there was no way they could keep a dog. But before the dog could come any closer, it had been run off by walkers and they'd had to move on, but not without her breaking down into a torrent of tears over having to leave the dog behind.

She looked up as a low rumble of thunder warned of a gathering storm. The sound was very faint and very far away, but they had both heard it. He already knew, from the way that the spiders were spinning their webs, that a storm was coming. He knew it in the very feel of the atmosphere. For now, at least, they were safe from any storms. They would not be out in the open as they had been on more than one occasion. But tomorrow- Tomorrow they would continue their desperate search for something they had only been on the verge of finding. Their goal was a fantasy, perhaps, though it was a simple one. It was an endless quest, a holy pilgrimage to find safety and the right to exist.

Hours later, when the storm clouds swept in and the rain was pouring steadily down on the roof and running off the eaves of the porch, he was going over all the reasons why he couldn't have any real attachments. They were all good reasons. Irrefutable reasons. He couldn't have a close relationship with anyone, including Beth, on a personal level at all.

But while they were laying together in the darkness, she on the sofa and he on the floor, he found himself including her in his plans for the first time, discussing tomorrow just like a husband and wife mapping out their future together.

"Do you think it's the same everywhere?" she asked. "All over the world? I mean, how would we know what's happening in England? Or China? Or Japan."

"I don't know."

"You know," she went on in the dark, putting words to her thoughts. "This may be the first time in history when there are no politics for people to argue about and no wars to fight."

"People are still fighting. The wars are just smaller ones. At least here. Human nature doesn't change," he said cynically.

"_We_ don't have to fight. We can put our energy into other things."

"Like what?" he asked. He didn't want to think about fighting either.

"Like thick slices of homemade bread," she said in the same voice Eve must have used to tempt Adam. "Covered with freshly-churned butter."

"Freshly churned?"

"You've never had it?"

"No." he said after a pause, "Is that the kind of butter you eat on a farm?"

"No. We go to the store and buy it. But my dad once showed us how it's made right from the cow."

They were both silent, jarred for a moment into remembering their losses.

"Chocolate donuts," he heard.

"What?"

"I'm imagining a fresh bakery donut covered with chocolate frosting. We'd bring them home every Sunday morning."

"Hell," he breathed in the darkness. "Why not imagine a whole bakery?"

She wondered if he was making fun of her, but decided that he was not, so she went back to imagining the possibilities.

"What about you? What do you crave? Not the dreaded pork rinds everyone eats- _Used _to eat," she corrected herself. "Around here."

"No. Hate 'em. What I miss is pizza. I'd give anything for a pepperoni, sausage and bacon pizza."

"All meats, huh. What about mushrooms?" she asked.

"OK. Mushrooms then."

"How about extra cheese, too?"

"Mm-hmm," he murmured. "I can live with that."

"You know these things have already been thought of and invented," she said. "Maybe when the world rights itself again, they'll come back quickly. I mean, who doesn't like pizza or donuts? Other people must be craving them just like we are. I'll bet cravings probably drive- _Used_ to drive technology all the time."

He rubbed a forefinger thoughtfully back and forth across his cleanly-shaven chin. "Maybe."

"Of course those things may not happen for a long time," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe not for our entire lifetimes." She was silent for a few moments. "I've already had to accept being single for the rest of my life. I won't get married or have a beautiful wedding. I won't have babies." After another thoughtful silence, she said, "Um, about what I told you before. During the drinking game. About dating and about having experience- I lied. Not about the dating, but I haven't- I never- "

His finger abruptly stopped moving on his chin. He wasn't saying anything while she worried that she had said too much.

"Maybe_ before_ I wouldn't have admitted that," she said in a suddenly-serious voice. "To anyone. But now there's just you and me. If we can't have total honesty between us, who can we have it with?"

She had a point there.

"If I can have a relationship with just one person on this earth, I'd like it to be an honest one."

Honesty. If he was to be honest with himself, he was feeling a little uncomfortable at the moment. He tried to lighten the mood. "So you'd expect honesty from a jackass? You've called me that before, you know. More than once," he reminded her.

She turned towards him and raised herself on one elbow. "You _can_ be as stubborn as a jackass sometimes."

"Stubborn, huh? According to you, that doesn't even begin to cover it. You also told me that I was the biggest knuckle-dragging creep that ever walked the planet. And you told me if I was the last man on earth- "

"Daryl, " she interrupted him. "The point I am making is that we still have to make the right choices. So let's choose never to lie to each other."

"All right," he sighed. "No lies."

"We've been through a lot together," she said quietly as she continued to look down at him on the floor.

"Yeah. We have."

In the beginning, she recalled that they'd had some knock-down-drag-out brawls. At least verbal ones. But she'd also seen the cracks in Daryl's tough exterior. She'd seen him break down and cry, show remorse over her father's death _and_ take responsibility for it. And she'd held him through it all, needing his closeness as much as he'd needed hers.

"Have you ever lied to me?"

He didn't answer immediately.

"Have you?"

"I lied when I said that fruit thing you made was good. If I wasn't half starved to death, I wouldn't have been able to get it down."

She didn't take offense at that. He thought he saw a faint smile on her lips in the darkness.

"Someday, Daryl Dixon," he heard. "I'm going to make you the best pizza you ever had. Wait and see if I don't." 

* * *

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 4

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

_**Chapter 4**_

The man shoved her hard between her shoulder blades. "Move."

Beth gritted her teeth against the rough treatment as she stumbled and barely managed to keep herself from falling headlong to the ground.

She'd managed to escape from the car. But it had been a desperate move on her part. She hadn't gotten very far before she felt rough fingers closing around her arm and jerking her around to a standstill. Now she was being marched back to the car like a condemned prisoner being taken to the executioner.

Daryl had always insisted she be well armed. "You never know," he had told her repeatedly. "What kind of a mess you might find yourself in. Always be prepared. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Anything can be used as a weapon if you are desperate enough."

Was she prepared? Not remotely. She couldn't even think straight because she was so scared. Fear, not preparation, was driving her at the moment. Stark, utter fear.

Maybe that could work to her advantage. Let him think I'm too scared to fight back, she told herself. Let him think I'm going to be an easy conquest. Let him get close enough, and when he was not expecting resistance, then she would make her move. She just didn't know what that would be yet.

Daryl's lessons kept playing and re-playing through her head. Bad people, he had told her, just make the next group have to be even badder. And _those_ would be the ones who would survive. That had been his brief commentary on social structure. An astute one, perhaps, for he had begun and then lived his life in a dog-eat-dog world. Even before everything had fallen apart. She had grown up in a very different kind of world, and he had been so hard on her, she knew, because he wanted her to survive. She knew now why he was always on the alert, knew why he never let his guard down and tried never to show vulnerability. He knew what some men were capable of while she didn't have a clue. Until now.

The man shoved her again. Harder this time. And this time she tripped and went down to her hands and knees in the dirt.

"Get up."

She didn't move fast enough to suit him, so he grabbed the back of her hair and dragged her to her feet. She yelped in pain, twisted and fought the brutal hold he kept on her hair. His reaction was to twist his fist even more tightly in her unbound curls. He brought her face close to his and hissed, "Bitch!" Without warning, he struck her. It was a vicious, back-handed blow across the side of her face. Her head swam and tears sprang into her eyes, blurring her vision. She tasted blood.

"Keep it quiet," Hitch whined in a high-pitched, strained voice. "You'll draw the damn things right down on top of us."

Beth fully expected the man to hit her again. He still maintained a tight grip on her hair. She could hear his slow, deep pants close beside her. The other man, Hitch, was standing there, too, watching. She registered the excited smile on his face. He's enjoying this, she thought. He wants to see me afraid. He's anticipating-

She heard more vile words from the man who held her. He promised to give her a lasting lesson about who was in control, promised to punish her for trying to escape. But she had no intention of giving in easily. Not while she had breath left in her body.

Hitch stepped closer. "We need to teach her that we mean business."

After a quick, nervous glance around at the dark woods, he reached forward and closed his hand around the T-shirt strap that had fallen down her shoulder. With a single, violent jerk, he tore the strap in two. The T-shirt slipped down, exposing her bare flesh to the night air.

Beth sucked in her breath and flinched away from the rough groping of his calloused fingers on her naked breast. Reacting instinctively she planted her boot where it counted. Two more gifts from Daryl. Combat boots and valuable lessons in street fighting.

Praying for accurate aim, she kicked the shin of the man holding her and caught him unaware as well. The man released her so suddenly that she staggered forward. The ground was uneven and deeply rutted. She fell. Not all the way. She righted herself and balanced on one hand, quickly pushing herself back up to a standing position.

For a moment, as she faced the men, she stood wavering, uncertain and terrified as both men slowly recovered. Then she heard herself warning them in a voice that she barely recognized as her own. "Keep your hands off of me." Even though she was seething with raw emotion, she was amazed at how cool and deliberate her voice sounded.

Hitch's voice, was a broken whisper from between clenched teeth. He was still bent over. He was still holding his crotch with both hands. "We're . . . going to make you . . . pay for that . . . " His voice faded into a drawn-out groan.

But Beth didn't see herself as he apparently did, as a helpless victim. She backed away from both men, ready for the fight of her life.

"Don't just stand there, Hitch. Give me a hand with her."

As the other man made his move, she snatched up a thick piece of branch lying on the side of the road. She spun back around. As he closed in on her, she swung with all her might.

The blow took the man completely by surprise. She heard the branch connect solidly with the side of his head. It was a sickening sound that immediately made her wonder if she had killed him outright. She soon saw that wasn't the case. He staggered to the side, reeling drunkenly and dropping down on one knee. Howling in rage and in pain, he clapped his hand to his head and stared as his fingers came away dark with blood. Then he looked up, fixed her with a murderous glare and uttered a string of profanities and oaths that sent a new surge of terror through her.

Part of her registered the growls and the snarls right away. She was already on high alert as something materialized out of the shadows. She saw the blue-grey, rotting flesh of the thin arms that separated from the darkness and reached wildly for her. Walkers. More than one of them.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**Chapter 5**

_**flashback**_

Beth heard Daryl's sigh in the darkness of the cabin. She brushed her hair back from her face, looked over the side of the sofa and watched him intently in the moonlight.

It wasn't like Daryl to be awake in the middle of the night, unless, of course, there was a good reason for it. He was lying on his back with one hand resting on his forehead, obviously about as far from sleep as she was.

"Are you worried about tomorrow?" she asked.

He was always worried, but no sense in letting her know that.

"I just want to make sure I've thought of everything." He had to give her _something _more than that, so he said, "I was thinking about what you said earlier. About going North. It could be different there. I'm just saying, it's something to think about."

"I'd like to think there was a place where this nightmare was over," she said. "Or nearly over. But I confess sometimes I think it's never going to end. Not in our lifetimes. I don't like the times when I feel like that because it's easy to get to the point where the only way to deal with it all is to shut everything down."

"Is that why you wanted to give up back at the farm?"

"There have been times when part of me feels so numb that it frightens me," she admitted. "And other times it just makes me feel sad. But to live without any emotions at all- I know that dark place and I don't want to drown in it again. Isn't that what a living death really is?" After a pause, she asked, "Do you think the walkers feel any emotions?"

"No. I think that part of them is dead, too."

"Then they deserve to be at peace."

"Ah, you mean as in rest in peace."

Her eyes, beautiful in their translucency even in the moonlight, were still steadily watching him. "Maybe," she said. "But I wish we didn't have to kill them."

"Sometimes there's no one else to do it but us," he said.

"It gets easier, doesn't it?"

"It never gets easier," he answered quietly. "You just shut your mind to it."

She thought about that. "I'm not as good at it as you are."

He didn't know if she meant the killing or shutting his mind down. He went for the easier answer. "You're about as handy with a knife as anyone I ever saw."

"Too handy?" she queried.

"No. You just do what has to be done. We all do."

"Sometimes I wonder if I contributed enough."

"You kept something alive in the group." In_ him, _he added silently_._

"Is that an actual compliment?" He heard the breathless quality in her voice. The surprise. "I'm speechless."

"That's good, because I was starting to worry that you were going to talk me to death. We need to get some sleep so we can get an early start."

She ignored his sarcasm and said, undaunted, "With any luck, we'll have good weather tomorrow. That will help. I don't like travelling in the rain."

"We've been lucky so far, but there is such a thing as crowding luck too hard."

His gaze shifted in the direction of the sofa. He caught a gleam of golden curls in the moonlight and a length of bare, shapely thigh that was not covered by her blanket.

Her hair was pulled to one side, and the blond curls were tumbling down over the side of her pillow. He caught a faint drift of strawberries. His gaze continued to wander helplessly over her womanly curves that, even under the blanket, were plain to see. He acknowledged that they were dangerous curves, at least to his peace of mind.

Even in the darkness, he felt her eyes on him, felt the intensity of that clear gaze. And even in the moonlight, he could have sworn that her gaze slid lingeringly over him. Which lured him like a drug into a place he didn't want to go. His reaction was immediate, if unwanted. Desire rocked through his body with an intensity that took him by surprise.

It was something that he had no control over. He knew that. And it was something he told himself he didn't want. Which wasn't strictly true. In fact, on some levels, it was an out and out lie. But, he consoled himself, maybe there was no harm in a little fantasizing as long as she never knew about it. It was just a healthy male reaction to a beautiful woman. In the middle of the night. When they were all alone.

Except it was going to get frustrating as hell because he had no intentions of acting on his fantasies. Not even remotely. He might be horny as hell but he wasn't completely without ethics.

How long had it been? Too long. Way too long. But that was no excuse.

It wasn't just the sex. There was something else. Something even more dangerous. Apparently he wasn't the cold, unfeeling bastard that she was constantly accusing him of being. He'd give anything to be just that at the moment. He had to make decisions that were not based on emotion. There was a heavy price to pay for mistakes. Even small ones could be instantly lethal. God knew that their very survival depended on his full concentration and his emotional detachment. Anything less than that could make him second guess himself, could make him think with his heart and not his head. Could get them both killed.

"You'll do things right, Daryl. You'll do things smart. You always do."

"I thought I was a knuckle-dragging neander- "

"I wouldn't be following you if I really thought that."

"Are you trying to say that you've decided to stop fighting me every step of the way?"

"To a point," she said cautiously, not understanding his mood. She could almost feel the tension between them and she didn't understand it. They'd had a good day together. At least she'd thought they had.

"I'll follow you and I'll trust you, but only to a certain point. I trust myself, too. Enough to let my own conscience guide me."

She had said that to him before and her words had led to a sobering realization for him, one that he was still trying to work through. Had he been like Carol, who had blindly followed a man rather than make her own decisions? Had he yielded up his very identity because he didn't trust his own conscience? Had he walked through life so far as a mere shadow of who he was supposed to be because he didn't even have a clue that it was possible to trust himself?

"Yeah, I know. You said that before. But it's late and I'd rather not hear it all again."

"You know what?" she flashed back. "Tough, silent guys might be OK in romance novels, but in real life they can really suck."

He stifled an oath. "Romance novels? That's good. But why doesn't that surprise me? If you're basing your opinion of me on romance novels, I gotta tell you, you're going to be disappointed."

After a huff or two, she remained a stiff shape in the darkness. But apparently she couldn't maintain her silence. "I'll tell you what is disappointing. Men that refuse to come out of the Dark Ages. Men that refuse to think that women are useful for anything beyond cooking, cleaning and- and- " She sputtered something he couldn't quite catch.

"And _what_?"

"And _what?"_ she echoed. "You fill in the blanks. I'm through talking about it."

Through talking about it? She might be through talking about it, but he wasn't through _thinking_ about it. What had she been about to say? The thought kind of intrigued him.

"I'm not discussing it any further."

"Suit yourself."

After a long silence, he heard, "Today was the best day I've had in a long time." There was a plaintive note in her voice now. She must have gotten her emotions under control.

He sighed inwardly. She knew how to get to him. She surely did. She knew how to diffuse his anger in an instant, knew how to make him forget why he was angry in the first place, knew how to turn him inside out with a word. Or a look.

"Thank you for everything," she said, ruthlessly tearing down his defenses even further. "All the little things may not have meant anything to you, but they meant something to me."

Lord, he thought, please don't let her cry. Because he'd already found out that he had no defenses against her tears after the incident with the dog.

"They'll _always_ mean something to me," she sniffed.

Damn Daryl, Beth thought to herself. It might still a dangerous, chaotic world out there, but this day had been a treasured moment in her life, something she would keep with her for as long as she lived, however long that might be. But even as she damned him, she realized another truth there in the darkness. She wanted to be closer to Daryl.

You didn't always have second chances in this world, so, without saying a word, she got down from the sofa and laid down on the floor next to him. It was a bold thing to do, but something was on the verge of spilling out of her, something vaguely forbidden, and yet it was something distinctly thrilling.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't want to sleep alone."

His reaction to her nearness, or perhaps to her words, was immediate. He threw his blankets back and sat up.

"What- " He sounded like he was strangling on something. "Are you doing?" he repeated.

"I'm doing what my heart is telling me to do," she said so softly that he could barely catch the words. It sounded like she was talking more to herself than to him.

"Your heart is telling you to sleep next to a jackass?"

"I told you. I don't really think that of you that way. Or- or the other things I said."

"Maybe you should."

She ignored his words and the anger behind them. "I don't want to sleep alone," she repeated simply. "I feel safer when I'm close to you. I guess you never talked half the night away at a slumber party and shared your deepest, darkest thoughts. This is like that."

No it wasn't. Not for him.

He made a low growl of protest deep in his throat. But he laid back down beside her, finding that he had no will to abandon her, not even emotionally. As he lay there unmoving, he caught a trace of strawberries and the perfumed sent of her skin.

"Blues," she said out of nowhere.

"What?"

"You asked me earlier what I would paint if I could. I would paint the sky," she said. "So I would need blues."

"Why . . . the sky?"

"Because it's the only place that's still untouched by all the bad things. All you have to do is look up and- " She was gathering up her blanket and snuggling so close to his shoulder that she was touching him.

To Daryl, the touch was like an electric shock sizzling through his body. "What difference does it make what you paint?" he burst out, fighting her, fighting what she did to him. "Or even what colors you use. You think any of that matters anymore? You think anyone is ever going to see what you paint?"

His anger was building again. Inexplicably. She felt the latent energy simmering just beneath the surface. She should be afraid of it, repelled by it, she knew. So why was she experiencing that strange undercurrent just below her own surface that ran deep, like an ocean current?

"I know you're upset for some reason. But please don't take it out on me. And please don't take today away from me. I just want one perfect day. I want to feel what it's like to be normal again."

"Nothing's normal and I don't know why you don't get that yet," he said, brutal in his honesty.

She rolled over onto her back, closer to her own lines, but staying there beside him. "I just didn't want today to end."

"Yeah, well, it's probably close to midnight right now, Cinderella. So technically it's about to end whether you want it to or not."

She felt her own anger mounting now. She didn't have to take this from him. She didn't deserve it. She rolled back over onto her side, her eyes narrowing with an accusing look that speared him even in the darkness. "So you're telling me you never wanted something you couldn't have?"

Her persistence was maddening. And her anger could be a dangerous thing. He got that instinctively. Without saying a word, he got up abruptly. He went to the window and stood with his hands on his hips, looking outside. The moon was out and it lit up the night with a silvery radiance. The stars were out, too. Millions of them were twinkling in the darkness.

He'd wanted to escape from the disruption she caused inside him, but she was relentless. She followed him to the window.

"The ravines keep it safer here," he said, trying to ignore her. "So do the fences. But I'll check things outside again to make sure there are no surprises while we're sleeping."

He stepped out onto the porch away from her and surveyed the moonlit landscape for a while. When he couldn't stall any longer, he went back inside.

She was still waiting silently, watching him from beneath her lashes while her arms were crossed over her chest.

"If you're not going to sleep on the couch, I'll sleep there," he informed her in a short, emotionless voice. "It'll be a hell of a lot softer than the floor."

"I don't want you to do that," he heard behind him. It brought him to a halt halfway across the room.

"What are you going to do? Stop me?"

"I might." Was that determination he heard in her voice? The woman was unbelievable.

"And just how are you going to do that?" he asked as he turned to face her.

"By asking you to please stay on the floor next to me."

She had no intention of making this any easier for him. Not by a long shot.

"What do you want, Beth?"

"I want to feel close to someone."

"And since it seems like I'm the last man on earth . . . " His voice trailed off with a resigned sigh, and maybe a hint of sadness.

"No, even if you weren't," she breathed quietly but very deliberately.

She stepped closer to him, wove her fingers with his. They had held hands before, but it had always been more of a comforting gesture. Right now, it felt like something else entirely.

"It isn't midnight yet," she said.

"This isn't right," he protested weakly.

"It feels right to me. And I'm not blind. I can't help but see the way you look at me sometimes."

"Then you've been misreading things. I'm not- attracted to you." But he didn't sound convincing. Even to himself.

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't lie to each other," she accused softly.

"I'm not. You're just wrong about this."

"I'll admit that you're probably a lot wiser than me about some things Daryl. But you're dumb about others."

"Not about this."

"Then you're a coward. You're afraid to admit that you have feelings for me."

"I'm not afr- "

"I know," she interrupted him, repeating what she'd heard from him before. On more than one occasion. "You're not afraid of anything. But the truth is, you _are_ terrified of feeling something for me, of being close to me. Because if you allow that, then if I am gone one day- "

He stepped forward so swiftly that he caught her unaware. She was immediately wrapped tightly in his arms. "Don't talk like that," he muttered against her hair. "Just don't."

At the very same moment that she had recovered and was letting herself lean into him, he released her abruptly and drew back again. He didn't say a word. He just stared down at her as she took a step closer to him and her hands crept up to his shoulders.

She shook her head. "Don't you know by now that we have to face whatever it is that we're afraid of?"

With a frustrated gesture, he raked the dark hair back from his face and shook his own head. "I don't want to think about that."

"When we face those things, when we allow ourselves to feel our emotions, the good _and_ the bad, we reach deeper into who we really are, who we were really meant to be. I have to believe those things still matter. To deny our feelings, to be afraid and give up and give in to the fear is death. I choose life. And sometimes that means taking risks."

"Maybe you haven't noticed, but every day we're on this earth is a risk."

"Yes," she agreed and nodded soberly. "And I'm willing to risk even more."

He knew then. She wasn't talking about walkers. Or bad men. She was talking about this thing between them. She had finally laid it out in the open for both of them to see.

He fought acknowledging it, even as he was aching for a release that he wanted so badly that for a terrible moment, it seemed stronger than his will to resist. And it wasn't just a physical release. It was more. So much more. He struggled to keep his walls in place and not let them coming tumbling down in a heap around him. Because- Because if that happened, could he put the walls back in place again? Or would it destroy him?

The witch was brutally persistent. She wasn't about to spare him. "You're afraid to even talk about it?"

He made another feeble attempt to keep her at a distance. "Damn it. I don't want you. You're not my type. I like a woman who knows what she's doing, who has experience."

"Well, I don't see too many of them around here at the moment." And then she just stood there, not saying anything, just waiting. Maybe for that honesty they had promised each other. But couldn't she see? He couldn't even giver her that. He'd always disappoint her.

Whether she meant it to be or not, he didn't know, but the lingering gaze beneath her lashes, suddenly seemed provocative and sensual. It sent a rush of need slamming straight through him.

Still, gathering all his will, he held back, poised at the edge of a precarious precipice, afraid of what the fall might do to him. No doubt she had some fairy-tale image of romance left over from childhood. A vision of a knight on a white horse who would come and rescue her. Couldn't she see-

"Even if you were the last man on earth . . . " she began again, letting her words trail off suggestively.

"I'd disappoint you," he finished for her.

"Shouldn't I be the one to decide that?"

She didn't wait for permission. Her hand began a lazy exploration of the hard, sculpted muscles of his chest. Then her palm slid down over his flat, washboard belly.

He sucked in a slow breath. Then he groaned deep in his throat. Just like a man who has just realized that he is hopelessly lost, and helplessly pinned in place like that pathetically- struggling moth. How much more was he supposed to take?

He must have made a heroic effort to reach deep inside for strength to free himself, because his will suddenly, and without warning, reasserted itself. His iron-like fingers closed around her hand, stopping any further exploration. "Stop," he said in a raspy voice.

She looked up to see that his jaw was clenched and that his eyes were tightly closed. He wasn't fooling her. He was trying to maintain control over the situation, but he was waging a losing battle and they both knew it.

"You really don't think about me this way?" she asked in a dangerously sultry voice. "Because I- "

He cut her off like his life depended on it. "You've misread- things. I don't feel the same way."

What he did next defied all rational thinking. He braced his hands on the wall behind her. Why he should do that, he had no idea. It brought him in even closer proximity to her sweetness. Madness beckoned. Reason fled.

Beth might be inexperienced but she instinctively knew the effect she was having on him. The knowledge that Daryl wanted her, in spite of his protests to the contrary, opened the floodgates of her own desire. Her untapped sexual appetite grew like a gathering storm. One that was about to swamp them both.

She felt his breath light as a feather on the sensitive side of her neck as he leaned closer. Without touching her, his breath warmed the line of her cheek to her chin. She tilted her head back, resting it against the wall, giving him better access. She reveled in the heady sensation of his mouth hovering so close to her. But still he held back for what seemed an eternity. Was he waiting for her to stop him? Was he hoping against all hope that she had more strength of will than he had?

Something changed. She felt his hand slide down the length of her back, slowly and seductively. His hand caressed the swell of her hip, then lingered possessively at the curve of her waist, while his thumb lightly stroked the sensitive flesh over her ribs.

"Is this what you wanted?" His voice was warm and husky and it sent arrows of heat shooting straight to her core.

"Yes," she breathed so softly that he wasn't sure she had even spoken.

"You're playing with fire, Beth," he warned, even as his mouth traced a slow and sensuous trail along her jaw, came close, so very close, to her parted lips. But he did not kiss her yet, even though his breath mingled with hers. He took her face between his hands, not ungently. He released a slow breath and shook his head, still fighting this thing between them, but it was his last stand.

He leaned his forehead against hers. Maybe he thought he could frighten her away when he said, "I don't think you know how hot I am."

"Then you should enlighten me," she whispered back, rising on her toes and reaching with her mouth to taste him, driving him to the edge of madness when she ran her tongue lightly across his mouth.

His eyes opened suddenly and he stared down at her in disbelief, his gaze growing more focused now and his breath coming much deeper.

He angled his dark head, hesitating only a moment longer. His gaze stayed locked with hers. And then there followed a passionate mating of mouths of want and hunger and incredible sweetness.

Beth lost herself willingly in the whirlwind of heat and fire that his kiss ignited in her. She was aware of every detail as the kisses went on and on. The feel of her breasts against his chest, the intoxicating taste of him. No one had ever made her feel the things she was feeling now. No one had ever come close.

And there was no holding Daryl back. Not now. His strong arm wrapped tightly about her waist, drawing her against him. As his kisses deepened, the exquisite sensations spread through her like wildfire, grew even more in intensity. She felt his arousal press against her. He wanted her. He couldn't hide that.

"Enlightened?" he rasped as he drew back for air. He held her captive with eyes so full of emotion that she felt she might drown in those dark and sultry depths.

Nothing had prepared her for this. Nothing she had ever imagined could be so thrilling or so consuming.

"There's- some protection in one of the bedroom drawers," Daryl panted, eager now and not bothering to hide it from her. "I saw it earlier. Let's be smart about this."

"OK, Daryl. But aside from that, don't think about being smart for the rest of the night."

As if they were both caught in the same moonlit spell, passion overtook them. But even the passion was tempered with a sweetness that took them both by surprise. For Daryl, it was a sweetness that he had never known before. It stole deep inside him, changing him, thawing a heart that had been cold for a long, long time.

They lost themselves and found themselves again among the stars. And discovered something they couldn't have anticipated. That there were still good things to find in a world that had lost its way.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

_**Chapter 6**_

Beth was gone, but that didn't mean he had stopped thinking about her. He had told her that if they were separated, he would look for her.

"I'll come back to you," he had promised.

He had done everything in his power to find her, but it hadn't been enough. He had failed her.

It ate at him day and night, not knowing if she was even alive. Worse yet was not knowing what she was going through right now. He couldn't dwell long on those thoughts. It disrupted him too much inside. He was prey to a kind of helplessness that he had never felt before. He fought it, knowing he had to get it under control no matter how impossible that might seem. Or it was going to destroy him.

Wherever Beth was, he hoped that she was in a better place. At least she was far away from this particular hell where they were caged up like animals, waiting for-

Heavily-burdened with the weight of his emotions and an uncertain future, he shook his head and continued doing as he had done for the entire morning. He kept it all hidden in a dark place inside him and tried to think of a way out of here.

But his thoughts had a tendency to return to Beth in spite of his attempts to stay focused on the here and now. He still saw her in his mind the way he would always see her. Down by the pond the morning after, her palms pressed together, her hair like a golden halo in the trembling light of dawn, the sun warming her upturned face.

She had looked up to see him standing there and she had smiled shyly. "We're like an island here," she had told him in a ghost of a voice. "I'm praying that we stay safe- out there."

She had looked down at her hands. "I suppose you never learned to pray." There was no criticism in her voice. No condemnation. Just a kind of sadness. "But sometimes prayer is all we have. Remember that, Daryl. Faith takes a different kind of strength. You can let faith lead you or you can give in to the darkness. I know as well as anyone that giving up can be easy to do because there is so much darkness around us, but don't do that, Daryl. Don't give up."

Faith _was_ hard to find in the present darkness. Almost impossible at times. He missed Beth. Like he had never missed anything in his life. He carried her in his heart. He always would. Until the day he died and her memory died with him.

Maybe they needed some prayer right now. All of them. He wanted to have the same faith that Beth had, but confronted by grim reality, how was that even remotely possible? He couldn't help but think of the connection between the things he'd seen in that barn to what he'd seen here in this place. Being caught in a nightmare world where he realized that both the living and the dead wanted the same thing from him was something he had not been prepared for.

Rick had said to him, "You know as well as I do what's going on here."

So he knew that Rick had figured it out, too. And he knew that they could face death, had faced it many times, but not like this.

They hadn't discussed it with the others. They hadn't put it all out there in the open. But he suspected they knew, too. They had all spent their time in captivity talking over several plans, but they hadn't come up with anything viable yet. Which had to change. They were running out of time. 

* * *

_The water looked deep. Dark. Forbidding._ Beth could see that the current was strong here. The sun was already down, leaving behind a blood-red stain on the horizon that was reflected on the water. Night was close. A tattered layer of mist drifted over the surface of the water and swept up the opposite bank, half obscuring the heavy, concealing brush that grew as far as the eye could see. Down behind and below her, half hidden by the trees and the vines that grew thickly here, was the chain link fence that enclosed Terminus. Not far from that was the river that bordered it.

The chances of finding Daryl, either alive or dead, were dwindling with each passing day. With each passing hour. She knew that. And knowing what she knew about Terminus, she didn't know if she wanted to find him here or not, but she didn't know where else to look. At the very least, she had to warn him if he was here.

The past weeks had worn her down, both physically and emotionally. In a weak moment, she almost yielded to her tears. "Where are you, Daryl?" she whispered. "I'm trying. I'm trying so hard to find you."

"Don't," she ordered herself, blinking hard and forcing back the tears. She couldn't let herself get lost in despair. Or fear. Or any other negative emotion. Then there really would be no hope. Remembering that she had warned Daryl about yielding to the darkness, she shoved her fears aside, and her uncertainties, and let a kind of grim determination settle deeply into the marrow of her bones. Until she had proof to the contrary, she would go on believing that he was still alive. She would go on having faith.

She crouched down in the brush, adjusting her battered body to try and ease the strain on her aching legs. Half of her body was a mass of bruises and she was exhausted. But she would continue to search for Daryl no matter what it took. She did not doubt that he would do the same for her.

She closed her eyes in the gathering dusk. She was assailed by a sudden wave of dizziness. Food entered her thoughts for the first time that day. She knew she needed nourishment if she was going to be able to keep herself going. The last actual meal she had eaten had been yesterday. She'd been able to find only a handful of berries today. But it kept her going. At least for now.

She had escaped from the men that had abducted her, and from the walkers, and she had surprised herself with her own savagery. She had used the car afterwards. After she had cleaned the bits of brain and the blood from the steering wheel. Hitch, like any true coward, had run at the first sight of the walkers. He had fully intended leaving her behind to fend for herself. But he hadn't counted on her getting hold of the other man's gun. Mercifully, for her sake as well as for his, it had taken only one shot to the head to kill Hitch while he futilely scrambled for his own gun. Luckily, she was just a little faster than he was. Pushing his limp body out of the vehicle had taken a little more effort.

She stared into the deepening shadows. Survival could make you do thing you wouldn't have thought possible. Things that would have been considered terrible in the old world. But this wasn't the old world any more.

After escaping from the two men, she had gone through even worse hardships. She shook her head as she thought over the past few weeks. She had been through so much. So much. But that was in the past now. What mattered was that she was here now, stronger in the knowledge that she had survived dangers she could not have imagined. She had learned a great deal and hopefully it would help her keep on surviving. Hopefully, t would help her find Daryl.

The signs that offered hope and salvation at Terminus were everywhere. But she knew they were a lure to draw unsuspecting people in. If Daryl was still alive, he might look for her here. He would be cautious. That would be like him. But he wouldn't know what she knew. And when he did know the truth, then it might be too late.

As she stared down at the sprawling complex that someone had decided to call Terminus, she thought about when she had first gone back to the funeral home to look for Daryl. She had been afraid of what she might find there, but there had been no signs of him anywhere. Even if the worst had happened, there would have been clothes left behind. And his crossbow was nowhere to be seen. The only answer was that Daryl was alive somewhere.

It was possible that he had been taken prisoner, too. She had gone back to look inside that barn after the other men there had driven away, but Daryl had not been there either.

Maybe he was looking for her, too. Right now. But maybe they were going in two completely opposite directions in their search. Maybe she would never see him again. It was her greatest fear, one that she didn't let herself face. Not just yet.

She shoved the damp hair back from her eyes. It was uncomfortable with her damp clothing clinging to her chilled body, but she couldn't do anything about that. The air was heavy with the scent of rain, wet leaves and damp earth. The rain had stopped falling about an hour ago though the trees still dripped with moisture all around her. But other than that, there were no sounds.

She sat quietly in the silence of the woods, listening, trying not to make any sounds herself. There were a few lights down below her, but most of the windows of Terminus were black voids.

_Think._

What was the best thing to do now? It had taken every bit of her nerve and her endurance to get this far by herself. But she knew she had to wait. She had to be smart and think her way through this before she made a move. It was hard to summon up patience. Especially when she was so close. But she forced herself to do just that. From a distance, Terminus looked peaceful enough. But she knew better. Its benign exterior covered something dark and sinister.

What _could_ she do by herself? She could fight with the ferocity of a tiger, maybe take them by surprise. Or she could be stealthy. Like a Ninja warrior. Whatever she decided, she would do her damndest to find out if Daryl was down there. Before it was too late.

_Do things smart. Do things right. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst._

All right, Daryl.

She would follow his advice and not act rashly. You couldn't go back and undo things. She already knew that wisdom kept you alive in this world. She had learned that lesson over and over again. The past could be a brutally unsparing teacher.

She bowed her head, suddenly awash in the unexpected resurgence of a sharp pain that never completely went away. You had to say good-bye to the dead and then walk away, but sometimes, out of nowhere, it all came back to haunt you and the pain was as sharp and as intense as it had ever been. She mourned the loss of so many and if she hadn't found a way to deal with the pain on some level, it would have crushed her into nothingness by now. She still had agonizing questions that had no answers. What had happened to all the others? To Maggie. To Judith- She closed her eyes tightly. Had she lost them, too? Just like she did with Daryl, she would keep hoping they were alive until she knew different.

The woods around her were painfully still. The atmosphere had grown heavy with the rising mist, almost oppressively so. She had seen nothing move for the past half hour or so. Not a walker. Not an animal. Not a guard. She seemed utterly alone in the world. It was as if there was no living being left alive, or dead, besides her. The weight of her aloneness bore down upon her. Had she gotten so used to Daryl's presence?

With every nerve and every sense straining, she leaned forward to catch the expected night sounds, but the silence was deep. There were no bird calls. No frogs. No insects. No rustling sounds of animals moving around in the brush. There was no wind. Nothing. It was like she was in a vacuum that had sucked all things animate out of the world.

She turned her head and tried to penetrate the darkness. A few leaves drifted slowly down around her, but nothing else moved. She was aware of the steady rise and fall of her breathing. She felt the pounding of her heart and the blood pulsing heavily through her veins. She was prey to a sudden, inexplicable sensation that something, or someone, was lurking in the shadows, watching her, was locked onto her scent and waiting for her to make some move before it pounced.

She didn't move. Years of desperate survival had honed her instincts to a razor-sharp edge. A tingling sensation crawled up her spine. She had developed a sixth sense over the past few years. It had saved her more than once in the past and she wasn't about to ignore it now.

She repositioned herself but stayed hidden. She almost held her breath waiting for something to happen and vaguely wondered with part of her mind if this was the way that hunted animals felt. But nothing happened. She re-focused and concentrated on one thing only. Saving Daryl. Darkness was here. It was time to go.

Pushing herself slowly forward, she cautiously threaded her way downhill through the heavy brush, coming to a stop at the edge of a clearing. Still keeping to the deeper shadows, and keeping her eye on Terminus, she took a step to the left and caught her foot in a trailing vine. She could not untangle herself fast enough and so she went down hard on her belly. Thorns deeply and painfully raked her legs, drawing blood.

She lay on her stomach for several long moments, sucking her breath between her teeth at the sharp pain, but she stayed frozen there. There was Terminus right before her, half in shadow and half gilded in the light of a full moon just now rising over the treetops. She narrowed her gaze. Like a predator now and not the hunted, she watched the narrow trail that led through the trees. She could scale that fence easily.

Be brave, she told herself. Stay strong.

Her attention was caught by the sound of a heavy door sliding open. There were a lot of boxcars within the fences of Terminus and she saw two armed guards standing before one of them. Her heart slammed into her chest when she saw Daryl standing in the open doorway of the boxcar. The two guards had their weapons trained on him.

One of the men motioned for Daryl to come forward through the open doorway to the outside. When Daryl stepped out onto the ramp, he must have hesitated. Beth winced as he was shoved forward so hard that he went to his knees on the ground. She watched intently, holding herself back as he struggled to get to his feet again. As soon as he was standing, one of the men jabbed Daryl hard in the back with his gun, forcing him to walk in front of them. The three men were soon lost in the darkness of Terminus.

Beth knew she had to make a move quickly. Maybe some of the others were still alive and were being kept here as well. If there were enough of them, if she could free them, they could fight. If-

Something rustled in the leaves behind her, catching her off guard and startling her so that she uttered an involuntary little cry. She spun around. As if her prayers had been answered, there in the moonlight was Tyrese. And Carol who was holding Judith in her arms.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

_**Chapter 7**_

Shoved hard between her shoulder blades, Beth went to her knees in the leaves and dirt. There were two men. The very look of them was like poison.

"Don't move," she heard one of them warn her in a low voice. "Don't make a sound or you're dead." He looked in the direction where Tyrese and Carol had disappeared in the woods. "And they're dead, too.

"You understand?" To make sure she understood, one of the men grabbed her pony tail and gave it a vicious jerk that brought tears to her eyes.

"What do we do with her?" the other man asked.

The man appeared to be considering her for a few moments. His answer came only after a long pause. "The usual."

He laughed coarsely. "Maybe after a little entertainment."

He grabbed her arm and dragged her roughly to her feet. He was staring down at Terminus so they didn't even see the small book that fell out of her pocket into the leaves.

"Move." Without another word, the brute began to steer her toward Terminus.

The heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting her off from the flickering torch light outside. When her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, she looked around. The place reeked of unwashed bodies, a faint chemical smell and something else. Fear, she realized.

She looked around at the half dozen shadows that shared her dark prison. She could barely see them and that alone inspired a greater sense of fear. None of the occupants of the boxcar said a word to her. Perhaps it was because none of them wanted to put their thoughts into words.

No one touched her or assaulted her in any way. The night dragged on with agonizing slowness and uncertainty. There was no comfortable place to lie down, so Beth endured a long, sleepless night not knowing what to expect.

She was leaning her head wearily against the boxcar wall when the explosion rocked Terminus. She scurried over to the door and tried looking out through the cracks where slivers of daylight were filtering in.

Something was happening outside. She heard gun shots. And people shouting. Dark forms moved past the box car, some of them within arm's reach. She heard snarls. Walkers, she realized.

Along with the other people, she started crying out. "Let us out." "Help us."

But no one came. She pounded impotently against the unyielding walls, crying out in her frustration. Was Daryl out there somewhere? He would help her if he knew she was here. So she kept yelling for help. She kept hoping.

It was pandemonium out there. Shadows kept passing through the light outside. People were yelling and guns kept going off. Single shots. Automatic weapons. And people started screaming. Just like they had done when the prison had been overrun.

"Daryl," she whispered as she stared at the closed door. "Where are you?"

* * *

_Daryl's happiness at seeing Carol_ was immediate and spontaneous. His relief at finding her alive was like finding a part of himself again. He had never liked Rick's decision to leave her on her own. To abandon her. To practically sign her death warrant. They had all made decisions that maybe they wished they could undo. Rick included. Daryl fully admitted that he was guilty of that, too, just like everyone else was.

But his joy was overshadowed at not seeing Beth among the survivors. Her absence was glaringly obvious to him. He still believed she was alive. He refused to believed-

He frowned suddenly when he saw something lying half buried in the leaves. He walked over to it and picked it up while a terrible sense of dread washed over him. He had an awful moment of regret when he realized they should have let all the people out of those boxcars. They should have made sure. His hand gripped the small journal so tightly that it shook.

* * *

_Author's notes: This is just a short chapter to let people know I have not abandon the story. In the meantime if anyone is interested, I have written another zombie book on Amazon called "Blood Storm: DeadRise II" and will have a link up for it in a few days on my profile page. Just click my name._


	8. Chapter 8

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 8_**

Daryl stripped down and stepped off the porch into the pouring rain. He lathered his body and hair and let the driving rain rinse the soap away along with the layers of dirt and blood. He repeated the lathering. And when the soap was gone, he repeated it again. And again.

He tilted his head far back and stared up at the rain-slashed darkness. There were no stars. No moon. There was nothing to relieve the empty darkness. He wanted to be clean. He wanted to wash away all the bad things of the past. Of course he couldn't do that. There was no way to undo it all. It stayed a part of who he was, reminding him that there was no forgetting.

Still, she had believed in him. There was no forgetting that, either. That belief kept him going.

He stepped back up onto the porch and shoved his wet hair back from his face. No hurry to put the clean change of clothes on. There was no one to see his nakedness. There was no Beth.

When his body was dry enough, he pulled on the new pair of jeans. He zipped up the front but left the button undone and stood there bare-chested. Suddenly he bowed his head and pounded his fist repeatedly against one of the porch posts and ground out an oath. "Dammit. Where is she?"

He felt raw inside. Hollow. Lost without her. There was no one to listen to his anger. His fears. His frustration. And so he cried his rage to the heavens and when he was spent, he rested both his forearm and his forehead against the post. He stayed that way for the space of several minutes till a shudder racked his half-naked body. Slowly, he straightened and drew a deep breath.

His loneliness was impressed upon him, too, as he stood there. Beth was the embodiment of all the good things he had secretly wished for in the past, the very things he had been forced to keep hidden. When she had come into his life, it was like a door had been opened and he couldn't get it closed again. Much as he _should_ want it, he didn't want that door to close. Ever. 

* * *

The heavy metal door of the box car slid open and daylight blinded her. Beth blinked against the harsh glare of sunlight that suddenly flooded the dark prison she had been confined in.

"Well, well," she heard. "What do we have here?"

She had fought tooth and nail against men like these. More than once. She already knew she was no match against their strength.

"I told you they'd leave something valuable behind," one of the men laughed coarsely as she was brutally handed from one form of captivity to another. 

* * *

Daryl stopped and turned slowly.

"What did you say?"

Rick's look was almost challenging. "I said, it's time to go."

"I'm not going with you."

"You don't want to make that decision."

Something dark flickered in Daryl's eyes for a moment. "Don't tell me what I want to do."

That surprised Rick. He hadn't been expecting it from him.

"Look, I know how you feel- " Rick began.

"Then this shouldn't come as any surprise to you."

"She's gone, Daryl."

"What the hell does _gone_ even mean?" he almost spat. "That she's dead? That she's one of those things out there? Or that she's going through some kind of hell right now that I don't even know about?"

Rick didn't have an immediate answer for him. He turned his face to the side and stared into the woods for several long moments. He looked back at Daryl and tried reasoning with him again. "We can't risk everyone else just for the unlikely chance that- "

"Don't say it," Daryl warned. His words had been forced out from behind his clenched teeth. His hands were equally clenched.

"You know this is what we have to do."

"And why is that?" Daryl's chin thrust slightly forward. "Because it's what _you_ decided? Do you know how many people your decisions have killed? Let's see, there was that kid back at the farm. The guy with the orange backpack begged us for help, and you wouldn't stop. And- Hell, there are too many of them to count. Well, Beth's not going to be added to the list."

"I know you're frustrated," Rick tried again in a softly-persuasive tone.

"Frustrated? No, I'm way beyond that." He slanted a dark look in Rick's direction. "She was there, Rick. She wasn't twenty feet away from us. All we had to do was to open those doors and free those people. She would be safe. She would be here with us right now. We heard people crying for help. We must have heard _her_ crying for help without realizing it. And we didn't do a damned thing about it. It's as much my fault as it is yours for ignoring those cries. No matter who those people were."

"You really think you're going to find her now? Do you know the chances of that happening?"

Daryl shook his head as he studied Rick with an unwavering gaze. "See, that's the thing I don't get. You expect me to just forget her and go off without giving her another thought. Would you have done the same with Lori?

"All this time I thought I had to be strong for you. I thought I had to be the one who took care of the dirty work because I was used to that kind of thing. I played that role before. But I don't want to do that anymore. Because it's all bull about me thinking I wasn't good enough to do anything different. It's bull about me thinking I deserved all the shit work."

He slid down beside the porch post till he was sitting on the wooden steps. His head was bent forward and his hands were hanging between his knees. "I'm through being that person."

"She's gone, Daryl," Rick repeated. "Sometimes we have to accept- "

"No," Daryl breathed. He lifted his head and watched Rick through narrowed eyes. "I don't have to believe that just because it's convenient for you. I can't follow you blindly anymore, because here's what I see. You grow more and more like the governor every day. It's all about you, Rick. And what you want. You've lost your humanity somewhere along the way. Killing people that need killing, well, that's one thing. I can accept that in this world. But I've seen the blood lust in your eyes too many times. You can't stop yourself once you get started. You lost it back at the prison for a while after Lori died. Maybe that's when it all started. I don't know. But if you keep going the way you're going, you will be just another version of the governor. Human life won't mean a damned thing to you.

"I want to think I'm better than that," Daryl went on. "There's always been a reason _not_ to do the right thing. Even before all this started. And sometimes doing what's right isn't the easiest choice to make. But I want to think I'm something more than just a mindless walker who goes around tearing other people apart because they don't have the brains to do anything different. If we don't keep part of who we used to be, or who we _wanted_ to be," he pounded his closed fist once against his chest. "Then what are we, Rick?"

Rick didn't answer him. Daryl knew from past experience that Rick wouldn't budge from the decision he had already made. He wouldn't even consider a compromise. He wouldn't listen to anyone else's opinion. He wouldn't allow any other member of the group to have a say. He would stubbornly stick to his decision, right or wrong, no matter what the consequences.

Daryl closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I'm going to believe she's still alive because I _can_ believe it. I've changed. _She's_ changed me."

"So you'll do what? Spend the next year looking for her? Or the next _two_ years?"

"If that's what it takes," Daryl replied quietly.

"Well, I think that's the wrong decision."

"You would know, Rick, about wrong decisions. You've made enough of them."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 9_**

A leader leads. And he defines himself not only by the choices he makes and where he leads his group, but also how he deals not only with his group's emotions, but with his own impulses as well. It matters, too, whether all members of the group are equal in importance, or whether some become sacrificial lambs.

As mankind was again plunged into a state of death and darkness, society, in part, had degraded to a form of bestial existence. For there was still evil in the world, just as there had always been, and evil rises up wherever it can get a foothold.

But man was designed to think and to reason, not merely to react like the animal creations. Therein lies his hope. From the very beginning, he had kept his eyes raised to something higher for his very survival. In the current state, however, many turned their backs on their own salvation, worshipping instead the gods of fear and hunger. They trampled mercy and charity underfoot and let selfishness and depravity guide them instead. But there were some who did not forget . . .

His hands and feet were still bound. The thin, threadbare blanket did little to keep out the cold. The low glare of the lantern held the darkness back a bit, but the shadows were deep along the walls and in the corners of the cellar where the light did not reach.

The wooden door banged open at the top of the steep staircase. Two men came down the narrow steps and dragged him roughly to his feet.

"Keep your mouth shut," one of them muttered. "And don't give us anymore trouble."

His split lip and the black and purple bruises covering his face were a testimony to the savagery of his captors. So were his sore ribs and the bloody wounds in various places on his body.

When they were upstairs, they shoved him through the front door and out onto the porch. As his boots creaked on the old floor boards, he saw that the sky was pitch black. The moon had not yet come up. There was nothing to light the darkness save for a sprinkling of stars that twinkled high above him.

They tied a thick rope around his neck, tightened it, and with this extra precaution they grabbed both of his arms and led him down the steps. They were taking no chances. They had seen what he was capable of. They were nursing a few bruises themselves.

He was surprised to find that the instinct to survive was still a driving force within him. That, if given the chance, he would fight. For his life if not against their brutality. Perhaps a man never lost that instinct, no matter how bad things got. He wanted to believe, even now, that humans were capable of being more than undead creatures without a conscience who lived only to kill and to eat.

He already knew that the world was full of suffering and injustice. And death. Mostly a man had no say over the why and where of his final moments. Especially in this world where there was no law except that which was in a man's heart. And as it had been in the past, it was still true that what a man had in his heart he often kept hidden. Until it was too late.

As they trekked silently through the woods, Lathan dragged in a shallow breath and smelled dead leaves and the pungent scent of pine. He wondered how different his life might have been had those people in that car picked him up instead of carelessly abandoning him. Or if those other people who had come along shortly after that had not stolen his backpack and driven him off after they robbed him and left him weaponless.

But there was no sense going over a past that he had had no control over. What was done was done. He couldn't change things.

One of the men shoved him hard between his shoulder blades and he went to his knees.

"Get up," the man snarled as he leaned over him. "Get _up_."

As Lathan struggled to his feet, he saw a faint lightening of the sky where the moon was rising, wraithlike, beyond the trees. The soft wind suddenly died, as if all of nature was holding its breath. A faint mist was rising from the ground. That, too, had a ghostly quality to it.

One of the men grabbed his hair and hissed in his face, all spit and whiskey fumes. "He wants you alive. If he didn't, I'd kill you right here. But this is for interfering in our business and trying to take the girl away from us."

A blow to his midsection viciously punctuated the man's words.

Lathan's breath left him in a deep, raspy groan. While he was still struggling to breath, they forced him to continue on. The narrow trail led upward to where Meng and the girl were waiting.

"Here we are," the more brutal of his two captors sneered. "Take a good look. And don't worry," he laughed evilly. "You'll still be alive when they feed you to those things."

It was like a scene straight from the pits of hell. Torches lit the scene far below him, casting a reddish glow over the dark, moving mass of figures that reminded him of demons writhing in mindless, tormented rage. It was a churning sea of the undead that became more agitated when the torches were lit, for they knew what was coming. These demons were hungry for one thing only. His flesh.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 10_**

It would all be so much easier if she could just stop trying. If she could just give up all hope. But she couldn't do that. The thought of seeing Daryl again, no matter how infinitesimal, kept her going. It was like a candle burning in the darkness that surrounded her. A candle that would not go out.

Beth struggled against the ropes that bound her wrists. As she had been doing for the past few hours. Without warning, the door suddenly burst open and banged loudly back on its hinges.

"I wanted this one for myself," one of the two men said coarsely, regretfully when he reached the bottom of the steps.

"Hell, you know Meng isn't going to let that happen," the other man mumbled from the shadows.

"Shouldn't have even brought her back here," the first man muttered as he leaned over Beth. The soulless eyes that raked her held no mercy. He grabbed her arms and dragged her to her feet, cursing her viciously when she fought against him.

As she stood there before him with her heart pounding, it felt like she could not get enough air into her lungs. Her limbs seemed to be paralyzed with fear. After all the things she had been through, this was the most terrifying. This was when she felt the most helpless.

She heard her own voice cry out in pain out when the man shoved her forward and she went to her knees.

"Get up," she heard the angry snarl. "He's waiting for you."

* * *

The mist had thickened. It drifted eerily in the moonlight like a living entity. Drums beat a pulsating rhythm that matched his heart beats. It made the things in the pit even more restless because they knew what was coming. The writhing sea of the undead almost howled with anticipation. They tilted their heads far back, like the blind peering upward through a veil of darkness.

And Meng, the leader of all this, was waiting, too. The man sat on a rock, unmoving, like one on a throne. Shirtless, hooded, he was a sinister figure who was looking forward to the moment when he would unleash his depravity on his hapless victims.

It was hard for Lathan to think that civilization had fallen so far in such a short period of time, but it should have come as no surprise to him that people would follow a corrupt leader into a cult worship of the undead. Death was everywhere, a constant reminder of man's fragile mortality.

He had tried to save the young, blond-haired girl. He had failed. She was white-faced and terrified in the moonlight, standing like a scantily-robed ghost beside the sacrificial altar.

"I want his coat," he heard muttered beside him.

"You can have it," the other man said. "I want them leather boots. Almost as much as I want to use my knife on him. But not nearly as much as I want- " The man's words trailed off significantly as he looked over his shoulder at the girl.

Lathan knew they were looking forward to their turn with the girl even more than they were looking forward to slitting his throat. Sex was part of the ritual. Meng knew he had to offer _something_ in exchange for mindless obedience. Black-robed figures ringed the clearing and were watching in eager anticipation like spectators in a bloody arena of death and perversion. All of them were more than willing to see their fear reflected in someone else's eyes. Their savagery, Lathan had already seen, knew no bounds. They were about as human as the things down below in the pit.

* * *

Beth was shivering, not only from the cold but from fear. The wind blew harder here in this high place, cutting right through the thin robe they had forced her to put on. Her hair was unbound and the wind blew several strands across her trembling lips.

The people around her had let themselves be blinded. She knew that. They didn't care about mercy or decency. No amount of pleading or begging would change things, because they didn't care about the truth anymore. They were more than willing to follow a leader who would use them to satisfy his own twisted impulses and desires, who would lead them into an even darker place.

The drums suddenly stopped and her breath lodged in her throat.

Not far from her, Lathan hung suspended by his hands in a silence so portentous that the whole world seemed to be waiting. The first man was grinning at him with evil anticipation. Lathan looked the second man in the eye unflinchingly, saw the change in the man's face, saw him hang his head. He was surprised to see that there was, perhaps, a hint of shame in the man's eyes.

But it wasn't going to change things. There was only brutality in the face of the other man because he saw something in the condemned man that was lacking in himself and he hated him for it. He hated the unshakable calm of the man even though he was a prisoner. He wanted to see him afraid. He wanted to see him grovel and beg for his life.

The man leaned forward and said close to Lathan's face, "Don't worry. You'll still be alive when we feed you to those things. Take a good look." He gave a high-pitched laugh, enjoying himself immensely.

They lowered him over the edge of the precipice to a narrow rock ledge. The noose tightened till he had to fight for air. The rocks were uneven and loose so that he had to struggle to keep his footing. With his hands tied together over his head, he was even more helpless.

_Forgot about the boots_, he thought to himself. And the coat.

The snarling and the growls and the wheezing groans far below him grew louder.

Meng stood. He spread pale, flabby arms wide. "Lord of the undead, accept this as our sacrifice. Look favorably down upon us as we spill the blood of the living onto the dead."

Lathan had his escape planned out. It was a desperate one, but it was the only one that might work.

_Take them by surprise_, he told himself again as he swung his hands free from the tree branch with a mighty effort and scrambled back up the side of the cliff. His boot caught the first man in the chest and the man flew back several feet. His boot lashed out again with lightning speed and connected with the other man's jaw. The man went down and stayed down.

The first man quickly recovered and came at him with an enraged howl. Lathan spun around and drove his heel in where it did the most damage. The man doubled over in agony, staggered a few steps in blind pain and lost his balance. With arms flailing, he fell over the edge, screaming all the way down.

The huge knife in Meng's hand glinted in the moonlight as he, too, rushed forward. The blade sliced through the air with a whooshing sound, but Lathan easily evaded the attack. He delivered a solid punch to Meng's face. It was a terrific blow that was accompanied by the sound of bone and flesh connecting. Again he struck Meng. And once again. He was sure he broke his nose the last time.

Lathan hadn't forgotten about the other people. They would swarm up here from the lower levels like ants from a disturbed nest.

He grabbed the girl's arm and steered her upward through the brush. "Come on. We gotta move."

He didn't have to tell her twice.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 11_**

His authority had suffered a serious blow, but he had no intention of going back to what he had once been. Bertram Mengle, who had been an accountant in his previous life, the life he had lived before the shit had hit the fan, had decided somewhere along the line that he was going to do the shoving and take what he wanted instead of being the one who was always being pushed around. No, the last thing he wanted was to be a victim again. He'd played that role since childhood. So if that meant he had to be ruthless, maybe even cold-blooded, then so be it.

Bertram, or Bertie as the worst of the bastards at the accounting office used to call him,

crouched on the ground feeling just like the office nerd he had once been, picked on, abused, made fun of. He held the edge of his cape against his broken nose, smearing the blood that wouldn't stop, feeling the night wind cut right through him. The dramatic flowing cape with his bare chest beneath it didn't seem like such a good idea at the moment. It was damned cold up here. He fought hard to keep himself from shivering. Remembering his audience, he didn't want to look like he was afraid. Or weak.

For a moment he _had_ weakened, but all his seething passions, the rage and the frustration and the hate that he had carefully nurtured over the years came boiling to the surface. The lust for power that he had felt slipping through his fingers came back with a vengeance, with such force that his whole body did tremble, but with emotion only. Ignoring the pain and the blood streaming down his face, he screamed, "Find them."

In the darkness his voice echoed and re-echoed from the stone walls of the pit far below him because a kind of madness seemed to seize him as he repeated the order, again and again and again.

"Hell," Lathan gritted.

He didn't get any farther than that. The crashing sounds in the brush grew louder. He didn't know if they had been seen, but he wasn't about to wait around and find out. They had to try every means possible to elude their pursuers. There was no giving up. It was a hard climb, but by grabbing onto brush and saplings they were able to pull themselves up to an overhanging rock ledge. When they reached the top, he asked the girl, "Are you all right?"

Too out of breath to answer, she nodded her head.

They still weren't out of danger. Not by a long shot. What they needed to do was to climb higher, but that was a difficult task in the darkness. The woods around them were thick and black as a tomb where the moonlight did not reach. No telling what was out there besides Meng's people. They heard rustling again. Right below them.

"Where the hell are they?" a gravelly voice growled. "I saw 'em come this way."

As they backed into the shadows, Lathan held a finger to his mouth, motioning Beth to silence. But as she took another step backward, out of nowhere someone suddenly lunged straight for her. Almost immediately there was a sharp blow to the back of her head. There was an explosion of stars, a loss of focus, confusion and she reeled, almost knocked off her feet.

In the clarity that followed, she reacted with the instinct of any animal consumed with survival. She started to fight the man that was reaching for her with rough hands. But he was a big man and she was no match for his strength. He jerked her toward him with a bone-jarring shake, spun her around and held her against his body like a shield. And then he held a knife against her throat.

"Let her go," Lathan warned through clenched teeth.

But Beth didn't waste any time waiting for someone to rescue her. She had been through a lot in the past few years and she had already learned that you had to know how to save yourself if you were going to survive in this world. Daryl had spent a lot of time teaching her some self-defense moves. She caught the man by surprise by biting his arm and twisting out of his grip, kneeing him where it hurt the most. He howled in pain and doubled over, fell over the rock ledge and landed heavily with a crashing of brush.

The other men reacted immediately and began climbing after them.

"They're going to pay for that," they heard someone snarl.

"There, up that way," another voice yelled.

Lathan grabbed Beth's hand and they were plunging recklessly through the darkness once again.

Branches lashed at them viciously, drawing blood. Thorns raked across their flesh and snagged their clothing. Beth bore it all as silently as she could and followed the man like he was her only salvation. She cried out when her hem was caught by a thorn bush. The man turned and, with a single jerk, tore her free with his bare hands. Without a word, they continued on with their desperate flight.

Panting with exhaustion, Beth stopped when the man stopped. She leaned against the rough bark of a tree and turned to look behind them. Her breathing was labored. Her breast was heaving. They could still hear the shouts of their pursuers but they were far away now. They could see torches moving through the trees but these, too, were at a distance. For the first time, Beth took a good look at the stranger in the moonlight. There had been no time to question him. No time to even guess at his motives, or to ask where they were going or why he was even helping her in the first place. But now those thoughts did come into her mind.

"What's your name," he asked, breathing hard, too.

"Beth."

"I'm Lathan."

There was no time for more lengthy introductions. He took his coat off and draped it around her. "I know you're tired, but we have to keep going. I don't like going blindly in the dark like this, but we don't have any choice."

She nodded, agreeing with him. "You're right," she said as she eyed the torches. "We need to keep moving,"

They made good time for a while and didn't stop until they reached a rushing stream. There was a sharp drop-off and Beth shook her head dubiously when she saw how steep the bank was that led down to the water's edge. But careful wasn't an option at the moment, so they started sliding recklessly downward.

It was the last hours before dawn and the fog had thickened. They waded the icy water and then began to climb the muddy opposite bank. But Beth's heart sank when she heard the snapping of branches before them. Expecting more of Meng's men, what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks.

The mist lay low to the ground so it looked as if the walkers had materialized from the fog itself. There were three of them. Moonlight sifted down through the branches of the trees above them, touching the walkers with an unearthly radiance. Their skin was pale, bloodless, the color of death. The ragged flesh hanging from white bone was a startling contrast to the black, clotted blood. Colorless eyes gleamed with a bluish, milky sheen in the moonlight as they turned with snarling rage, becoming aware of them instantly.

Beth didn't move. Paralyzed by uncertainty, she didn't know what to do. She had no weapon and there was no way of knowing what lay in the deeper shadows that surrounded them. There might be more walkers out there.

The next moments were a blur. Nathan plunged a knife, a big one, into the head of one of the walkers. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth saw him thrust the knife into the head of the second walker. But not fast enough. One second she was standing there, the next she was lying in the mud and the wet grass as the third walker pushed her down. It dropped right on top of her body, pinning her to the ground.

She rolled halfway to her side and tried to crawl away, desperately searching for something she could use as a weapon but all she had was her bare hands. Her robe was caught under the knees of the walker and she couldn't get it free. She heard the vicious snarls right above her. She felt cold panting breaths against her face, expecting any second to feel a bite. But what she heard next was heavy breathing and the crunch of bone as Lathan dragged the walker off of her and drove the knife into its forehead.

As Lathan held his hand out to her and helped her to her feet, he was the one panting now. The moonlight was shining on the wind-blown strands of his damp hair as he shook his head at her. He was clearly shaken. "Do you know you just scared the hell out of me?" he breathed. He blew out a long breath and took a moment to recover before he said, "Come on. Let's go."

They didn't follow a straight line through the forest. They avoided the deeper depressions where zombies must have been gotten themselves trapped and then couldn't climb out again. They couldn't see the zombies down in the hollows, but they could hear them in the darkness. Eventually the landscape did flatten out and they began to make better time.

"Stop." Lathan yelled out suddenly, coming to an abrupt halt. She had heard his deep groan and saw that he had run straight into a wire fence. "Careful, that's a strand of barbed wire along the top."

Beth saw the blood darkening his shirt and his palm. She moved closer. "Let me help you."

As she dabbed at the blood, she asked him the same question he had asked her earlier. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he answered her. "But we're going to have to get over this fence."

They carefully climbed the fence and stood gazing out across an open field that must have been a cornfield at one time.

"We'll keep to the edge of this field," Lathan said. "I don't want to be out in the open even if we would make better time."

Skirting the field and keeping to the deeper shadows at the edge of the trees, Lathan was going over their options. Except for the knife he had taken from Meng, they were weaponless. He felt exposed and vulnerable in the darkness. They needed to find a place to shelter for the night. Needed to find food and drink and some clothes for Beth. The temperature was dropping and despite his coat, she was shivering, She didn't complain but he knew the cold was going to wear her down as much as their relentless pace. Who knew the last time she had eaten. It had been a while for him.

In the distance before them they could see two buildings. One to the left and one to the right. They couldn't see what the buildings were but the roofs were gilded in the moonlight.

"Kind of like the story," Lathan said when they paused a moment to rest. "What do you think? The lady or the tiger?"

Beth stared at the two buildings. Wrong decisions were costly in this world. Usually there were no second chances, no making it right again. But even a tiger seemed preferable to where they had been. She pointed to one of the buildings. "How about that one?"

The building turned out to be a house trailer. When they drew closer, they heard someone yelling. "Help me. Help me dammit or I swear I'm going to kill you."

The cries had already stopped by the time they reached the yard of the trailer. The door was wide open. There were zombies inside thumping around and snarling viciously. Obviously with a kill. Two more zombies were staggering around in the yard, trying to find their way inside, but not having much success. There were two sheds in the yard. Neither looked inviting. And almost on top of them, in the branches of a huge sycamore, was a tree house.

The zombies in the yard spotted them almost immediately. Lathan was gripping the knife in his hand when a ladder dropped down from the tree house. He had no way of knowing what was in the tree house, but at the moment it looked a lot safer than the yard so he urged Beth to climb the ladder. Then he followed her up.

There were two people in the tree house. A woman and a child. The child looked to be about eight. The woman was young and thin and she looked like she'd been through hell. She had a split lip and numerous dark bruises on her face. She peered at Nathan closely through the darkness for a few moments, then slumped down wearily on a wood chest and began to tell them her story.

"I met him in the road," she said as she turned her face briefly in the direction of the trailer. "He said he was going to take care of us." She paused and closed her eyes for a moment before she went on. "It didn't take long for him to start showing what he really was, and I soon realized we were nothing more than his prisoners." She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly before she continued. "Someone hid water and food up here. He didn't bother to look so he didn't know about it. He went to look for food in the trailer . . . " her voice trailed off and she left the rest unsaid.

She stood up and opened the wooden box and showed them bottles of water, canned foods and a can opener. There were even a couple of blankets. Lathan drew a relieved breath for the first time in days. They'd be safe from zombies up here. They would be able to eat and drink and get a good night's sleep. Beth looked like she needed both. So did the woman and the child.

Lathan pulled the ladder up and, without saying more, there in the darkness, with the snarls of zombies in the background the small group prepared a humble meal that seemed like a feast. Beth looked up, startled to hear something from her past as Lathan led them all in prayer before they ate.

* * *

"Shut the goddamned door," a voice growled irritably, waking Lathan from a deep sleep. A string of vile profanities followed the slamming of a door. "We just had to care of two more of 'em. The last thing I need this early is to have to deal with a whole pack of those things. They've killed _someone_ in there. For all we know it was them."

"It's all right with me if we're done here," another voice spoke up. "I've tramped around these damned woods for as long as I'm going to on an empty stomach.

"What about that tree house?" the same voice asked.

There was silence for the space of half a dozen heart beats. And then one of the men grunted shortly. "There's no ladder and no way to get up there. I'm sure as hell not going to build one. Let's get back. They better have a hot meal waiting for us after all this."

* * *

"They came through here."

The heels of Daryl's leather boots made their own impressions in the soft mud. They had come upon the tracks earlier and they had been following them for the past half hour.

"Something's not right," Daryl said as he stooped down and studied the prints more closely. He lifted his head and listened. Carol watched him silently, waiting for him to go on.

"See here? The woman fell and the man's footprints are right on top of her. Looks like he hit her."

"Maybe he was trying to help her up," Carol suggested, not comfortable with the scenario Daryl was painting.

"No, she was trying to crawl away from him, and he was standing over her. She had long reddish hair. He must have grabbed her by it when he hit her."

"You can tell all that?"

"There's some strands of hair here that have been pulled out by the roots."

"Maybe it was a walker."

"Nah. A walker's gait is all different."

Carol didn't comment.

"And there was a kid with them," Daryl said grimly, his chin pointing slightly over his shoulder as he spoke, but he didn't look directly at Carol.

A strong sense of dejavu put a knot in Daryl's gut as he straightened. The man's footsteps led right to the trailer, past two walkers lying in the yard. He walked over to the trailer and peered through one of the windows. "It's a bloody mess in there," he said without turning.

Carol swallowed hard. "Maybe they all- "

"No," Daryl cut her off. "There are tracks leading off again. Four sets of 'em. One belongs to the kid. There are other tracks, too," he muttered to himself as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "But they go back the way they came."

He was staring up at the tree house now. And the ladder. "Fresh mud on the rungs," he said under his breath.

Carol was instantly alert, staring upward, too.

"Nobody there now," Daryl told her. And then he added, "Whatever happened, there was a lot going on here last night. We'll head out in the same direction," he said nodding slightly towards the prints that led away from the trailer. "But first, I'm going to have a look up in that tree house."

A little while later, they were both sitting with their legs hanging over the edge of the tree house floor.

"You fell pretty hard."

Daryl looked at Carol frowningly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You fell," she repeated. "For Beth."

He looked away from her and sighed deeply. "How could you tell?"

"You're changed." Carol stared out across the mist-veiled landscape. "Did she- feel the same way?"

After a pause, he sighed deeply and shook his head. "Yeah, she did." He was looking down at the ground below them. "I never could hide anything from you."

"No," she said softly. "We've been friends too long. We've been through too much together."

He laughed shortly. "Funny thing to happen in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, isn't it?"

"I've seen stranger things." It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she wished someone could make her feel changed, too, that someone could help her ease the wounding of her soul, but she remained silent, keeping her thoughts to herself.

"Always wanted one of these," he said, gripping the edge of the tree house floor.

"Why didn't you build yourself one?"

"Tree houses are for kids."

"You were a kid once," she reminded him.

"Not so's you'd notice," he said quietly. "Seems I mostly skipped those years."

Carol was lost for a moment in her own reflection of the past. Then she gazed out over the cornfield from their high vantage point. "You think- " she began. She stopped, shook her head.

Daryl turned his face towards her. "What?"

"I was going to say something stupid, like, you think they need help?" Her chin lifted. Her mouth straightened. "We don't need to be taking on more trouble."

"No, trouble already has a way of finding _us_," he said thoughtfully, his voice low and husky as he ran a hand over the dark beard stubble shadowing his chin.

"What are you thinking?" she asked without looking at him.

"I'm thinking that a tree house is a good place to hide from the rest of the world. You know, kind of sitting above it all and not being a part of everything else that's going on."

"Whoever built this one was probably thinking the same thing," she said. She got to her feet and arched her back as she stretched. A silence fell between them, followed by a slight creak of hinges. "Whoever- " she began. But she never finished.

And then Daryl heard her say behind him, "I've found something. You need to see this."

He stood up in one lithe movement, not in any hurry. The floorboards shook slightly as he crossed the tree house and stood looking down. He went still and then looked closer. There inside the lid of the wooden box was a name scrawled in bold letters. B E T H. And an arrow pointing west.

Daryl got down on his knees and gave a small one-sided grin as he reached out and ran his hand lightly over the letters that had been drawn in purple crayon. "I'll be damned," he breathed softly. "Looks like she remembered that I said I liked tree houses."


	12. Chapter 12

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 12_**

"It was a dumb move."

Carol looked at Daryl questioningly.

"Going off to Washington. Look how hard it is to make it _here_. What do you think it would be like in a crowded city with walkers everywhere and gangs there already armed before this even started? Hell, you think the officials in Washington wouldn't already have their own private army in place? If they had something worth taking, they'd already be prepared to do what they had to in order to keep it." He shook his head. "There's no fixing this from Washington."

Carol looked at Daryl's strong profile, saw the hard line of his jaw and the clear grey of his eyes as they gazed into the distance.

"Maybe a lifetime ago there was a chance of stopping this," he went on. "But it's gone too far now. This has to play itself out to the end. And we either survive or we don't. No one's going to come and rescue anyone. Rick's a fool sometimes." He looked at her. "He didn't tell me what he was going to do. Cutting you loose like that."

Her loneliness in the aftermath of Rick's decision, her feeling of abandonment came back to haunt her for a few unguarded moments. For a time, confronted by her greatest fear, that of being completely alone in the world had about killed her, the pain was that sharp. She saw herself as a wolf kicked out of a pack, left to the mercy of a very cruel, very unmerciful world. For a long, agonizing time, she had believed that it had been a unanimous decision. Until she knew better.

"It was hard," she admitted, the insufficient words sounding hollow even to herself.

"I'm sorry for that," he said. "I'm sorry for a lot of things. We should have handled things better. Bad decisions got a lot of people killed. We all made them." His low voice trailed off when he remembered that she had suffered, perhaps, the greatest loss of all when she had lost Sophia. Rick's dictatorship had cost them all immeasurably.

Carol tried hard to fight it, to keep it tamped deep inside, but for no accountable reason, the memory of the brutal rape shortly after her abandonment washed over her with a suddenness that almost took her breath away. She bowed her head and uttered a sound like a sob, then covered her face with one hand as all the trauma of that day came like an engulfing tidal wave.

"Someone hurt you," Daryl said thickly as he watched her struggle. Her pain was so raw he could almost feel it himself.

She nodded, unable to voice it all in mere words.

He put his strong arm around her thin shoulders and pulled her closer, only now realizing how the fragile of her was mixed in with the strength. He rested his chin against her hair. "I can't change all that," he whispered, and then vowed, "But no one is ever going to hurt you again."

Still holding her, he said with amaze, "After all that, you still made the decision to come back and save us."

His jaw hardened with the flow of his thoughts and there was a vengeful light in his eyes that he suppressed right before he said to her, "In spite of all we've been through, there _are_ still beautiful things in the world." He drew back slightly. "I'm looking at one of them right now. Don't ever let anyone tell you any different."

No one had ever said anything like that to her. No one had ever seen anything good in her. For a long time she had been living a nightmare. She'd had no one to talk to, no one to care if she lived or died. She could not help opening up to him just a little. "Sometimes the past follows us into the present," she said enigmatically as she wiped at the tears. "Sometimes we can't get away from it." She knew that better than anyone.

"You're right," he agreed. "But the truth is that we've had the keys to unlock the prison of the past all along. _I_ didn't have had the courage to use them myself." He pressed his palm against his chest for a moment. "Truth is, I chained myself only I didn't know it." His hand fell away and he looked down at the ground between his boots. "For a while I was so confused that I was in an emotional free fall. Like any fool, I fought her – I fought Beth. But she was there to catch me and to help free me."

"What's that like?" Carol asked in a voice barely above a whisper, a voice that still held a shadow of her tears.

"It's like- " He thought hard for a few moments. "Throwing a heavy weight off your back."

"And you're left with what?" she asked, vulnerability in her eyes now as she searched his face for an answer.

"Something deeper. Something better, more true. The time finally came when I knew, when I finally got it. I didn't want to be what people told me I had to be. I wanted to be who I really was inside." He kicked at a small pebble with the scuffed toe of one boot. "It isn't always easy, but I'm working hard at this. Sometimes I want to say fuck it all and give in to the darkness again. But I won't go back to the way things were. I can't. Not anymore."

He looked at her with the clear light of honesty shining in his eyes now.

She wanted to feel different, too, but how could she feel any other way than what she had felt all of her life? Parts of her were so numb that sometimes she wondered if she wasn't as dead as a walker and only going through the motions of being alive. Long ago, even as a child, her life had become a prison of hopelessness along with a knife blade in her heart, twisted again and again. All those years. All those wasted years. She couldn't undo them.

A part of her didn't want to feel anything. She didn't want to reach deeper and feel the pain that seemed so unbearable that it would consume her. She knew the dark place he spoke of and she didn't want to drown in it again. Sophia had kept her dreams alive, but Sophia was gone now. Part of her had died with her daughter.

"You don't feel like everything has already been destroyed?" she asked in a ghost of a voice.

He shook his head. "Naw. You're just like me. You're afraid to hope. You're afraid to let go because you might sink, because you think the darkness might be too deep. In the past we were just drifting away without oars," he said low-voiced. "Cowards. Afraid to love because we thought we didn't deserve it."

He drew a deep breath and shifted around to face her, bent one knee and stretched the other long leg out. His gaze went beyond her so that she could not fathom the depths of his emotion as he wrapped one arm comfortably around his bent knee and leaned back against the wall behind him. Outwardly he showed no sign of emotion, but inside she knew that emotion ran deep. A muscle at the side of his jaw tightened. His brows came together in a frown. "She's out there. Somewhere. If the rain holds off- " He stopped and gathered himself. "If not and it wipes out these tracks, I won't even know where to begin to look." An expression like sorrow flickered in his eyes for a moment.

It was a revelation to Carol seeing this side of Daryl. It was one that he had never allowed her, or probably anyone else to see before. Except for Beth, of course. She realized that behind the hard, inflexible exterior that he had always presented to the world, behind the mask of indifference that he had adapted was something far deeper and far more profound than she had realized, something better that would have ruled him had his life been different. Had the world allowed it.

She stared at him a moment before she said quietly, but with resolution, "The rain won't stop you from finding her."

Dusk was settling around them as they sat there. The shadows were deepening. In the distance the landscape seemed greyer as a thin mist hung over everything. Gradually the horizon blurred and the scent of rain grew heavier.

Daryl got to his feet and stood in the open doorway of the bank. "We're almost out of daylight," he said absently as a walker emerged from behind the chain link fence at the far end of the street and immediately headed straight towards them.

"Looks like they found their way out of the baseball field." He sighed heavily. They had seen the walkers earlier, but they had been trapped in the enclosed ball field. They had searched most of the town earlier and found no one alive, only walkers.

Running had become a way of life. It became second nature. You could never just stay put in one place, never stop being vigilant. So putting down roots became the desired thing. The thing hoped for more than anything else. They'd pushed hard today, gone as far as they could physically go. Now it was a matter of finding temporary shelter and waiting out the night, and the rain if it came, before heading out again.

Two more walkers came out of the baseball field. .

"Stay behind me," Daryl said to Carol as he started walking.

The walkers were in the street now, their ravaged bodies making their way slowly, inexorably towards them.

"That big house at the end of the street," Daryl said shortly. "We'll have to make a run for it." He picked up his pace.

"That side door," he pointed, not slowing down as he headed for it. "It's closer."

They reached the gate of the picket fence that enclosed the yard. Cautiously for a moment. You had to be on guard against the living _and_ the dead. Once inside the yard, rain began to pelt the ground heavily around them. Big drops of it.

They stepped up onto the porch and Daryl jerked the door open, grateful at finding it unlocked. He looked around briefly, heard nothing, saw nothing, so he shoved Carol inside. Following her in, he closed the door behind them and they started opening doors. There was no way of knowing, of course, which door would offer a brief period of freedom. Or death. Or worse.

"Whoever you're thinking about, are they alive or are they dead?"

Lathan's voice startled Beth out of her thoughts. Rain was falling quietly on the leaves outside. Her shoulders were wet from the rain. Her hair was dripping. All they had was the overhanging ledge of rock that created a small cave for shelter. They'd barely made it here before the rain began to fall in a drenching downpour. Rain was still falling over the projecting edge of rock above them, making a grey curtain of rain before her, like a waterfall. It wasn't much, but they were dry and they had blankets to keep them warm. She had spent cold, uncomfortable nights in the rain before and she had no wish to do so now. Both her arms were wrapped around her knees which were drawn up to her chest. Her gaze was fixed on the vast stretch of landscape far below them where the waterfall did not block her view.

There were a few moments of silence as she thought about Lathan's question and about her answer. And then she said, without looking at him, "I'm going to keep hoping that he's alive."

Lathan nodded his understanding. Everyone had lost someone. Everyone was haunted by those losses. Survival was a daily gamble in this world where the dead far outnumbered the living. Being a survivor meant being a minority.

Beth stared back at Lathan in the dim light. The rain had made beads on the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His hair was wet, too. He shoved the wet strands back from his face and looked at her sitting across from him.

"You all right?" he asked, aware of something vulnerable in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

"I'm just tired," she said after a sigh.

"We all are," he said with his own sigh.

They had found the cave by accident. With darkness almost upon them, and the threat of rain, Lathan had decided they would spend the night here. It wasn't an ideal place, but they'd learned that buildings were just as likely to hold trapped walkers as not. And it was going to be as cold as it was last night. Stumbling around blindly in the freezing dark, especially in the rain, there was no telling what they might run into. He was worried about the woman and the child, Anna and her daughter Emily. He knew they'd reached their physical limit before they'd even reached the cave. They clung to each other as they rested in their blankets on the ground. Who knew what they had been through already? Who knew what their losses were? He knew Beth had been through a lot, too. At the moment she looked like a lost child herself.

Seeing the mother and the daughter together had stirred something deep inside Beth. It reminded her of her own mother. And her father. It reminded her of how fragile life could be, how precious. It brought back a flood of memories. A lifetime of them.

The struggle for survival followed so closely on the heels of death that there was never enough time to grieve. She had not properly mourned loss of her mother or her father or her other family members. She realized now that she had not completely come to terms with any of it.

"I'm sorry about last night," she said quietly.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about," Lathan told her.

But in her mind she did. She had shown weakness. Lathan had been there for her. He had shown so much strength. She at least owed him strength in return.

"Last night I- " she began.

Last night she had shed some tears that she hadn't been able to keep inside. It had been unintentional. And completely unexpected.

"You don't have to apologize for that."

He saw that her hands were clenched into fists and that the delicate line of her jaw had tensed. "We don't have the luxury of falling apart," she said in a haunted voice.

"There's no rule that says you have to be brave and strong all the time," he said to her.

She looked up slowly. She remembered when she had said something like that to Daryl.

"Right now it's not going to change anything if you do let yourself fall apart for a while."  
"We have to learn to let go so many times," she whispered, half yielding to the tears that needed to be released. "It never gets easier."

You just buried the pain deeper inside. You just hardened yourself a little more on the outside. Her mother. Her father. Daryl. The thought of never seeing any of them again, or any of the others, seemed unbearable at the moment.

She hung her head, dangerously close to breaking down. Not knowing what was worse, falling apart or trying to keep it all inside.

"I don't know if I'll ever see him again," she said so forlornly that Lathan's heart ached for her. He knew there wasn't anything he could do to make her feel better. The harsh reality was that there were few happily-ever-afters in this world. He had observed Beth closely over the past few days. She had courage or she wouldn't have survived this long. But courage only went so far in this world. She was entitled to her tears. Denying that would be less than honest.

Beth knew that Daryl might already be dead. Not only was it possible that she would never see him again. Equally distressing was the thought that she might never know what had happened to him. Not knowing was the worst. It was like an endless sentence of uncertainty. Did you mourn? Or didn't you? Did you hope? Or did you finally give up?

"I never thanked you," Lathan heard her say.

At his questioning look, she said, "For saving me."

"You're forgetting that you kind of saved me along the way, too."

It was true. She had been an asset to him. They both knew they were lucky to be alive. In this world second chances were rare and you quickly learned to be grateful for any kind of chance at all.

So here they were, thrown together by chance, just like the woman and child. Lathan had watched Beth as she wrote her name in big letters inside the chest in the tree house. And then she had drawn an arrow under it. Yeah, she was definitely desperate to find someone. Or have them find her.

"Where did you learn to fight like that?" she asked.

"I taught martial arts before everything fell apart," he answered her. "Then when I had nothing but time on my hands, I practiced it. It was one way to work out my frustration."

"It probably kept us both alive," she pointed out.

He shrugged. He couldn't imagine leaving her to die, with or without his martial arts experience.

"There are plenty of the wrong kind of people out there," she went on. "It's nice to know they're not all bad."

In spite of all he'd seen, he, too, chose to believe that good people still existed.

"I know what it's like to be alone and needing help and help doesn't come," he said. "Once, when I was at my lowest point, I tried to flag down a passing car. But they drove right by me, knowing that I was as good as dead if they didn't stop. Someone else came along and stole my backpack. I barely made it to the woods with nothing but my life. After zombies killed the person who stole my backpack, the car came back and picked the backpack up." He laughed shortly under his breath. "That's probably because the thing was so visible. It was bright orange. I guess everyone thought there was something valuable inside."

"An . . . _orange_ back pack?"

Beth remembered seeing one in the prison. She wondered if . . .

Lathan shrugged again. "It doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot now. Except that I had pictures of my family inside that I lost. It was all I had left." He shook his head slowly, caught for a moment in remembering.

"We all have it," Beth said after a silence.

"We all have what?" he asked.

"The disease. We'll all turn when we die." She thought that he should know that.

"You know about everyone being infected?" Lathan asked. "Who told you?"

"Someone at the CDC said we all carry the virus. The group I was with went there back in the beginning."

"That's _part_ of it," Lathan said soberly. "Ever wonder why would you get it when you're bitten?"

Beth thought that over. It was one thing that had never made sense to her. "I don't know. Why _would_ getting bitten matter if we're already infected? And I never understood why some of us- why we aren't all like that, when there are so many that are. I mean- if we're all infected- wouldn't we all be walkers, too?"

"Whoever you talked to didn't tell you the whole story. It's true that virtually everyone had been infected with a stealth virus. They'd been infecting the population of the entire world for years."

"Who is _they_?" Beth asked.

"That's the million dollar question. Whoever it was had been powerful enough that they operated in secrecy for a long time. I started out with a military unit who knew part of what was behind it all. When it everything started falling apart, people inside started sounding alarms. But it was too late by then. Even our commanders didn't know what the real goal was. Power, maybe. Population control. Genocide. Bio-warfare. Take your pick."

"How were we infected?" she asked.

"Arial spraying. Chemtrails some people called them. It was in the food, too. And it was in the water. Wherever they thought it would work. They did a lot of experimenting till they got it right."

"Then why haven't _we_ turned if we're infected?"

"Because the virus needs a catalyst. On its own it doesn't cause anything more than a mild case of the flu, but when the virus comes in contact with a certain bacteria, it has the ability to acquire the genetic coding from the bacteria. It's the stuff of nightmares all right. Both the virus and the bacteria were genetically engineered."

"You mean- "

"Yeah," he replied to the horrified look on her face. "They were both developed as bio- weapons. Whether it was by design or not, we became the victims."

"You mean we did this to ourselves?"

"Basically."

"You were a soldier?"

He nodded.

"How was the bacteria introduced?" she asked.

"All those unusual flu epidemics were staged. The first epidemics were test runs. When they were ready, they pushed their new vaccine. It contained the bacteria."

"What's a bacteria doing in a vaccine?"

"You'd be surprised what can be found in your common everyday vaccine. Orchestrate a pandemic, scare enough people worldwide, _kill_ enough people, then offer salvation."

"So that's why you turn after you get bitten," Beth said, reasoning it out. "The bacteria gets transmitted through the blood. Just like rabies."

"Just like."

"I wasn't there. But as far as I know, the man at the CDC didn't mention all that."

"Maybe he didn't know," Lathan suggested.

She frowned and shook her head. "He planned to kill himself and take everyone with him."

Lathan's stared back at her. "Sometimes when people decide to commit suicide, they want to take everyone with them. Like the Jonestown massacre.

"I figure the people behind this must have had a plan to cleanse the earth of the undead," he went on. "A world of flesh-eating monsters that they couldn't control wouldn't be of much use to them."

"I haven't seen anything like that," she said.

Lathan shook his head. "Maybe they just haven't gotten to that phase yet. But it has been a long time since all this started. It's possible they got caught in their own trap. By now they should be taking steps to kill off the zombies. Or walkers, as you call them. Unless something went wrong."

Later, after Beth wrapped herself in her blanket, she listened to the rain that began to pour down with a vengeance once again. She had a lot to think about, but exhaustion overtook her. Her eyes grew heavy and she was soon fast asleep, caught up in dreams about walkers and conspiracies. And Daryl.

_"Beth!"_

Lathan's tense whisper woke her in the darkness. She sat up immediately, still half asleep, but ready, out of habit, for a fight with walkers.

She scurried quickly to the back wall of the cave with Lathan and heard the sounds of a struggle outside. Heavy breathing. Grunts. Yells. Leaves rustling. The noises grew louder till they were right on top of them. Something catapulted over the edge of the rock ledge. They heard enraged snarls and knew it was a walker. The crashing of brush stopped as the walker disappeared from sight.

The same thing happened all over again. First came the sounds, and then another walker appeared briefly beyond the mouth of the cave. It plummeted and quickly vanished just as the first one had.

"Holy shit!" they heard. "Did you see that one?"

There was raucous laughter. "It's caught in that tree. Just like a shish kabob."

Not far from the entrance of the cave, the impaled walker flailed about in mid-air, helplessly dangling and skewered straight through the middle by a tree branch.

Two men laughed now as they stood on the ledge above them, apparently finding the plight of the trapped walker highly amusing.

"Just like runnin' cattle," one of them said.

"We're done here, ain't we?" the other man asked. "Meng said we were supposed to clean these woods of the damned things. I don't see any more of 'em. That ought to be good enough."

After a silence, they heard, "What do you think she was?"

They were obviously talking about the impaled walker, who was a female.

"I don't know, but look at them tits. They must have been something before all this started."

The other man snorted with disgust. "You'd fuck anything. You're a sick bastard, you know that?"

"Come on, you mean to say you never thought of 'em that way?"

"No. Never."

In the silence that followed, they heard the sound of a zipper being undone.

"You taking _another_ leak?" the first man asked.

"No," came the answer.

"Hell, is that all you ever think about? Do you really have to do that now?"

"Why not," came the reply. There was a breathless quality to the second man's voice now. "Nothing to stop us from doing whatever we want to . . . whenever . . . " His voice ended in a low, drawn-out groan.

"I'm not like you. I can wait till something better comes along. Something warm."

"Can't always find a live one . . . ohhh . . . "

"I'm going to sit over here," the voice of the first man grew louder. "And enjoy the view." A pair of legs dropped over the edge of the cave entrance. "Let me know when you're finished. I never knew anyone who got a hard-on looking at zombies."

"Like . . . to . . . try one . . . just once," the second voice panted.

The man sitting over the cave entrance muttered under his breath, "Just like a freakin' animal."

Beth closed her eyes, disgusted, embarrassed as the groans and moans intensified. Finally they stopped. There was a quick zip and shortly after that the leaves rustled.

"Funny, ain't it?" they heard. "We should come back sometime and see if she's still wiggling around on that tree branch."

"Your girlfriend can't move much," the other man commented. "Maybe the birds'll start pecking at her. That'd be something to see."

The men finally moved off and the people in the cave waited a long time to make sure that they were gone for good.

Beth stood in the cave entrance, staring out. She was clearly upset as she watched the helpless walker. "She deserves better. She never asked for any of this."

Lathan looked down at Beth. He glanced over at Anna and Emily before he said, "I'll get her down somehow."


	13. Chapter 13

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 13_**

Daryl heard his voice cry out. He bolted upright in the twin bed and looked around the dark, unfamiliar room, momentarily confused by his surroundings. His heart was pounding from the nightmare and for a long time he couldn't shake the disturbing image of Beth dying. Of Beth needing him. Only he was so far away that he couldn't reach her. It had all seemed so real, so unchangeable.

Fully awake now, but still in the grip of the nightmare, he got out of bed and stood before the window. The sky was dark and starless but he sensed dawn coming on. Bracing his hands on the window frame before him, he looked down into the yard of the big house. Nothing moved down there, not even a shadow. They'd left the window open. It wasn't raining now, but everything was dripping wet. It was going to be a cold, wet walk through the woods when they did set out.

Carol was awake now, too, and she was sitting on the edge of her bed. She had awakened instantly when she'd heard Daryl call out for Beth. She could barely make out his features in the darkness, and she watched him silently for a while before she asked, "You've had another nightmare?"

His reply was little more than a low growl.

She had allowed herself the luxury of sleeping without her boots. She pulled them on now and sat waiting for Daryl to talk if he wanted to, but she accepted his silence, too, if that's what he chose.

"Rain's ended," she heard him say so softly that she could barely catch the words.

Without looking at her, Daryl said over his shoulder, "Daylight's coming on. We'll head out soon since you're already awake."

He said no more. His lips were set in grim lines as he turned back to the dark room and groped in the darkness for his own boots.

* * *

Beth glanced at Lathan who was silhouetted against a leaden sky. He remained standing in the kitchen doorway as she walked into the room.

"Mornin'," he said quietly, half lost in his own thoughts.

She smiled faintly in return. She stood barefoot on the wooden floorboards, a pair of shoes dangling by their laces in one hand and dry socks in the other. She sat down and began to pull the socks on.

She was less talkative than she usually was. She had dreamed again of the maddeningly repetitive, half-empty place she was compelled to return to. In the dream she was always saddened by the run-down condition of the house, but the worst part of the dream was that she was completely and utterly alone. Everyone she ever knew was gone.

There were days that were harder than others, and this looked like it might be one of them. Maybe it was the gloomy weather that was so depressing. Or maybe it was the feeling of the dream that lingered and accounted for her mood. There were still things she kept locked away in a deep dark place that no one ever saw. She tried to shake it off and concentrated on the here and now. They lived in a dangerous world and a day could change everything. If you wanted to survive, you remained vigilant. No matter what you felt like, you had to find a way to stay strong. That's what you did when you were part of a group. Other people counted on you for their survival, too.

After she finished lacing up the shoes, she opened cabinet doors and checked to see what they might have missed. It had been dark last night when they'd found this place. They'd found a gun that had been hidden away in a canister in the kitchen along with some ammunition. It was a good find. They also found some warmer clothes, which they needed badly because the weather was getting colder. As for food, they had to make do with a few crackers for breakfast. They would have to find more substantial nourishment sometime during the day. If they were lucky they would find something. If not, it wouldn't be the first time any of them had gone hungry.

It was troubling to think that Meng's men were so close. They had escaped once, but Beth knew that they would probably not be so lucky a second time.

Far back in a corner of one of the cabinets, she saw a jar. She had to stand on her toes to reach it. She blinked twice as she stared at the label, came as close to smiling as she had in a long time.

"What'd you find?" Lathan asked her.

"Pizza sauce," she said, her mood brightening as she put the small jar into her backpack. Maybe it was a sign. She wanted to believe that. At the very least it was a reminder.

"Pizza sauce, huh." Lathan stared curiously at the expression on her face, then pulled the brim of his hat down lower. "You ready?"

She nodded. Anna and Emily were ready, too.

"Let's head out," Lathan said as he opened the back door.

And so they set out just as upper rim of the sun was showing itself over the trees to the east with one thought in their minds, that of finding a safe haven.

* * *

By noon Beth was exhausted. And Anna and Emily were in worse shape. So they rested in an old brick house that looked like it had been abandoned at least half a century ago. There were no signs of walkers, but they still had found no food.

"It hasn't warmed up today at all," Beth said, rubbing her arms briskly with her hands.

"No, it hasn't," Lathan said as he watched out the window. "We were lucky we were able to find warmer clothes, though. Hard telling what month it is, but I have a feeling it's going to stay cold."

After a silence, Beth joined him at the window and asked, "How long were you a soldier?"

"Twelve years."

"So that's why you use those military hand signals."

"It gets to be a habit," he said. "Something I don't even think about."

He had spent the morning teaching them signals as they'd walked because he thought they might come in handy somewhere down the road. They hadn't run into any active walkers, but they saw a lot of _dead_ ones. That was just as disturbing because it was probably the work of Meng's men. So they remained extra vigilant.

They set out again, worn down as much from the cold as from hunger. It was a damp cold that seemed to sink deep into their bones. They stumbled across more walkers. Some of them were badly mutilated or hacked to pieces. Some were still alive, if that's what you could call it, but unable to move. They came across several heads stuck on poles. It was a gruesome discovery, one that made Beth turn away.

They smelled the smoke before they saw it. When they cautiously topped a rise, they saw that the fire was still burning. An entire house was engulfed in flames below them. Beth stood back in the trees, the flames mirrored in her eyes, remembering that night with Daryl. Against the yellow glare, she could see black figures standing around watching the fire. There were half a dozen men that they could see. The roof collapsed with a loud whoosh and sparks shot upward into the low-hanging branches of the trees.

The men were coarse and profane. They laughed gleefully at the destruction. From what Beth could tell they were burning the house not only because they were torturing some walkers that were trapped inside, but they were burning out of pure wantonness. With no restraints to keep them in check, some men were like that. She had learned that lesson a long time ago.

"We need to get out of here," Lathan whispered. Everyone agreed. Anna and Emily went off first. When it was Beth's turn, she edged backward slowly.

When one of the men down by the house turned his face suddenly in her direction, she crouched down instantly, trying to be as still and as silent as possible. Staying low, she inched her way back toward the deeper woods, slipping once on the muddy ground. She took another step. The leaves suddenly gave way beneath her and she tumbled backward, sliding downhill all the way to a damp creek bed. She knew that the mud staining her jeans was the least of her worries. She'd fallen a long way and she couldn't see the others.

When she braced herself on a fallen tree to rise, her hand came down on something soft and spongy. Something slimy. She scrambled immediately to her feet and backed away from the decaying walker that was partially concealed under the leaves. It wasn't moving. It was staring up into the trees with wide, colorless eyes. Without taking her eyes from the walker, Beth dropped down and wiped her hand on the leaves. Looking up, she tried to get her bearings, was startled when dead twigs snapped behind her.

She whirled around, realizing that she wasn't alone.

It was Lathan. He had seen her fall. He had come to find her.

He gave her a hand signal at the same moment that a man emerged from the trees. And then another man appeared.

"I'll take care of them," Lathan called to her. "Go. Hide."

The first man moved forward for an immediate attack, but Lathan was ready with his knife. The man didn't have time to cry out as Lathan drove the knife deep into his heart. That man sank to his knees and toppled over. The second man lunged forward like an enraged bear. Lathan kicked his leg out from under him and brought his knife down again before he could make any more noise. But it was too late. The other men had already been alerted.

* * *

Carol's hands clung to the wooden gate. On either side of her, stretching out in both directions, was a waist-high stone fence. On the other side of the fence was a rolling field, overgrown, but fresh-smelling after the rainfall. The far end of the field dipped down to a small pond which was half hidden by a long drift of low-lying fog.

It was a desolate landscape. And silent. Nothing moved out there. There were no walkers. No birds. No wildlife of any kind. They had headed in the same general direction as the footprints. Daryl had kept up a relentless pace all morning and well into the afternoon, but they had finally stopped to rest. Right now Daryl was seated on the ground with his back against the stone wall.

Carol watched him mark off another day on the small calendar he always carried with him. "Why do you do that?" she asked.

"Hell if I know," he replied as he returned the calendar to his pocket. "It's just a habit. Maybe it's so I know what to expect from the weather. Once I started, I couldn't stop."

"What month _is_ it?"

"December," he answered as he got lithely to his feet.

"See anything?" he asked as he stepped close beside her. "We need to be extra careful," he commented thoughtfully. "There are a lot of tracks around here, and they're not all from walkers." He ran a hand across the lower half of his lean face and narrowed his gaze as he looked out across the field.

"Think of all the fields that haven't been planted. We used to farm some way. Before all this started."

She looked up at him, surprised. "Really? I never thought of you as a farmer. I see you as a warrior. That's the way I'll always see you."

"Yeah?" he breathed. "Well, I wish the war was over."

She looked back across the field and saw, finally, a rabbit emerge from the weeds. "You think this will ever be over?"

He shook his head slowly. "I don't know. The Dark Ages ended. And that was pretty bad."

"You think this is like that? The Dark Ages?"

"Probably not. But this sure isn't the Enlightened Period. What would you do if it did end?" he asked, frowning as if he was thinking about his own answer.

"I would find a quiet place where I could have a little garden," she said as if envisioning it. "I'd stay safe in my own house and my own back yard. I would wake up in the same bed every morning. And I'd never have to worry about walkers again. What would you do?"

He scratched his beard-shadowed jaw for a moment. "I don't know. Your plan sounds pretty good to me."

He turned his face to the side and sighed deeply as if something was weighing on his mind. But he didn't speak. The silence lengthened between them. Then, without warning, his hand closed around her wrist where it rested on the gate. It clamped tightly like an iron shackle. But the pressure suddenly loosened.

Daryl stepped back from the wall, staring downward. Carol looked closer at the section of fence that he was looking at. There, written in purple crayon on one of the stones, was the name _BETH_.

While she was still looking at the writing, she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. Daryl was pushing her down behind the wall. They could hear a walker moving around in the weeds. They could hear its snarling and its wheezing breaths grow louder. There came two distant pops, one right after the other, and the sounds stopped.

Daryl crouched down in front of Carol and grabbed his bow where it rested against the stones. He motioned silently for her to stay down low. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins, but Daryl had pivoted on his heels and he was blocking her view of the field till all she could see was his broad back.

She heard voices. They were distant at first, but they grew closer and more distinct.

"You've been drinking harder than ever since you found that stash," she heard.

"Something wrong with that?" came the belligerent challenge.

The familiar voice made Carol's blood run cold. She would never forget that voice. Her whole body tensed.

"It's not me you have to worry about, Lagan. It's Meng. You know he wants everything turned over to him."

Lagan uttered a profane expletive.

"Anybody hears you- " The words trailed off significantly.

"We were lucky to find those two escaped prisoners again," Lagan said coldly. "I expect that will keep Meng happy."

Daryl shared a sharp glance with Carol.

"Hell, he'll probably reward us in some way when we get back," Lagan went on.

Daryl looked at Carol and they waited. The voices grew silent and suddenly the gate creaked open.

The two men had their guns trained on Carol and Daryl. Lagan motioned with his gun. "Get on your feet," he ordered. "And set that bow down. Real slow. Real easy."

Daryl set the bow against the wall and then straightened to his full height.

"Put your hands where I can see them," Lagan commanded sharply.

"This was too easy," the other man began nervously. He looked around, expecting, perhaps, some kind of trap.

But Lagan was immensely pleased at capturing two more prisoners. "Well, well. What do we have- " He looked closer at Carol. Recognition dawned in his eyes. "You," he breathed and then his lips twisted into a sneer. "We're already acquainted, aren't we, honey? Know each other _real _well. Didn't expect to see you again." He grinned lecherously. "But we'll have ourselves a nice little re-union. Watch her close, Fitch," he went on. "She was a hell of a fighter."

Lagan was concentrating on Carol so much that he seemed oblivious to the fury seething in Daryl's eyes. His muscles were as tense as a panther about to pounce.

Lagan laughed and looked at Daryl. "You try her out yet? She- " His crude remark ended in a strangled gurgle as Daryl's fist shot out and tightened around his neck like a noose.

"Shoot . . . him," Lagan coughed and choked out at Fitch. He kept trying unsuccessfully to get his own gun in position to shoot Daryl. "Kill the motherfu- "

He never finished. Daryl's knife plunged deeply into the man's throat. His final words sputtered as the blood flowed and bubbled from the wound.

Fitch made a move for Carol. He stepped behind her, grabbed her upper arms and pinned her against his body like a shield.

But he had underestimated her. Like Lagan said, she was a fighter. She jerked out of Fitch's hold and rammed her elbow hard into his chest. Then she spun around and drove her fist into his face. She didn't wait for him to recover. Her boot landed in his midsection at the same time she knocked the gun out of his hands. She heard his deep, gasping groan as he stayed doubled over with pain.

"What're you gonna do now?" Unarmed, Fitch wheezed as he glared, first up at Carol, and then at Daryl.

Daryl shrugged. "Me, I'd use you for target practice. Get on your knees."

Fitch's face paled at that, but he obeyed Daryl instantly.

"But it's her call," Daryl went on without emotion. "The only reason you're still alive is because she hasn't decided yet."

"I never done anything to her," Fitch whined. "I wasn't even there. Tell him," he pleaded as he looked up at Carol.

Before Carol could confirm or deny his claim, Daryl spat in the mud between Fitch's knees. "You're lucky then. Because if you had been part of that, you'd be dead right now, no matter what she decides."

Fitch renewed his begging. "I'll do whatever you want."

Daryl cast a secret, meaning glance in Carol's direction. Then he asked her, "What do you want me to do to him?" He appeared to be bored and ready to move on. But, in truth, there was one burning question in his mind.

Carol stood over the cowering man, knowing full well what Daryl wanted to know. "Those prisoners you talked about, where are they?" she asked.

"Prisoners?" Fitch looked confused for a moment.

"They've been taken to- " He spat, wiped at the drool on his mouth and his sleeve came away bloody. He stared at the blood and then dabbed gingerly at his lips again.

"They were taken _where_?"

The low-voiced question made Fitch forget his wound and look up. What he saw in the man's eyes awed him. Terrified him. He told them all he knew.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**_Chapter 14_**

_Meng_.

It was a bad-ass name. The name of a leader. Strong, decisive. He had chosen well. The name suited him far better than Bertram. That person, the one he had once been, had died a long time ago, and the past had died with him. But now-

Now he felt invincible. Powerful. The two prisoners who had tried to escape him would pay for defying him. They would grovel at his feet. They would be an example that no one would ever forget. If it was a harsh and unforgiving world, that was not his doing. That was, as he saw it now, fate.

People wanted,_ needed_, a leader. People were weak. On their own, they could barely think for themselves. They were like cattle. They wanted to follow someone. So he would give them what they wanted.

When he had been terrified and on his own, something had changed inside him. He had done things that had changed him. He had crossed lines, stepping further and further each time, and found that he could have the revenge he'd always wanted. He could have things he had never dreamed of having. Without the messy complications of consequences or censor. Or conscience. And then, when people had miraculously obeyed his first commands, he had known a euphoria he had only imagined existed.

But somewhere in the evolving pattern of his self-image he made his first mistake. He began to think of himself as invincible. It was the first of several lethal mistakes. He also began to crave being worshipped, above all else. He had dyed his hair from mousy brown to stark black. His wardrobe had undergone some dramatic changes as well. He stood now before the huge, full-length mirror, turning this way and that, admiring his new flowing gown. Purple. The color of royalty. He nodded at his reflection. It was true. Clothes really did make the man. He was convinced now that this had been his destiny all along. He was carving out an empire, and this zombie apocalypse had afforded him the opportunity to do that.

Of course, he was not the only ruthless person in this world. The past and his broken nose were proof of that. And he knew there could be no hint of weakness if he was going to maintain his position of authority. People far and wide had to know of his power. They had to know that this was his exclusive domain. That had to hear of the name Meng and respect it. For that, he had to make people afraid.

He was still fine tuning his best move to achieve the fear that was so vital to his new image. He had something special planned. Something big. Something that would make the people whisper the name of Meng in awe.

* * *

Beth knew that Lathan had been captured, too. She didn't know if Anna and Emily had escaped. She could only hope that they had. She paced, looking for some weaknesses in her prison, but could find none. But that didn't mean she had given up.

She swung around as the lock rattled and the door creaked back on rusty hinges. Two men entered the room, an armed guard, and Meng himself.

"Hold her," Meng said to the other man.

Her arms were seized roughly and pulled behind her back.

She glared at the purple-robed man. "Are you afraid you can't handle me yourself?" she said contemptuously.

Meng stepped forward, gripped her chin tightly in his hand and turned her face, first to one side and then the other. "I can see how a man might risk his life for you. Underneath all that innocence, you have fire." He let her go.

"And what do you have under your exterior that makes you need to bully women?" she asked, boldly taunting him.

His eyes narrowed dangerously for a moment but he did not immediately reply. Instead he gave a chilling smile. "There's a man looking for you. He's been pretty- relentless in his search."

He had caught her off guard. Was it Daryl?

Meng was watching her face closely. When he registered her reaction, he said one thing only. "He's going to die because of that."

Folding his hands behind his back, Meng continued to regard her. "You're still fighting

me," he said with a shake of his head. "But that is going to end soon. I promise you that. Soon you will- Well, you'll find out when I am ready." He suddenly chuckled under his breath as if he found her amusing.

But Beth wasn't thinking about Meng at the moment. There was only one thought on her mind. Daryl. How was she going to escape and warn him that he was possibly walking into some kind of trap right now that had been set by this lunatic?

Meng's gaze slowly raked her body, lingering on her muddy jeans. I will have appropriate clothing prepared," he said to the guard. "If she becomes- difficult, do what you have to, but take care not to mark her face in any way."

* * *

The wind blew through Beth's unbound hair. It was a cold wind, as cold as the feeling that gripped her heart, a heart that picked up its pace when she saw the tall, dark figure approach from a distance.

_Convince him_, she heard Meng's warning again. _Convince him at any cost if you want him to live._

Daryl continued to approach her slowly. And then he stopped before her. On the outside he appeared calm, composed, unworried. But there was a wariness in his eyes and a tenseness in his muscles that she alone was aware of. He couldn't fool her. She knew him too well.

She noted all that, and realized that he was unarmed as well.

"So you found me," she said closing her eyes for a brief moment, aware of the catch in her final word. She couldn't help it. She re-grouped and gathered up her courage.

"So I did," she heard him say softly.

His gaze ranged the length of her body, took it all in in an instant, she knew, without appearing to do so.

"I didn't know you were the type," he drawled quietly.

Her startled gaze searched his face. At her unasked question, he said, "To wear a dress like that."

She plucked nervously at the skirt of the gown. "I'm sure there's a lot you don't know about me."

"But there's a lot I _do_ know," he said enigmatically.

"Carol's with me," he told her.

She looked around. She didn't see anyone else.

"They wouldn't let her come to this little- arranged rendezvous."

"Oh."

"You ready to come with me?" he asked.

"About that," she began and swallowed hard because her throat suddenly felt so dry she could barely get the words out. "I've- decided to stay here."

He waited for her to go on.

"It's safe here," she said, forcing the words out. "There's plenty of food and- that's better than starving every day. And, well, as you can see, there are nicer clothes to wear."

He didn't say anything. He just stood there, waiting for her to continue.

_Convince him. _

She looked down, brought her hand up nervously to push back a lock of stray hair that had blown across her lips. The same ones that were doing their best to lie to him for his own good. "I've given this a lot of thought. It turns out that we're really not suited for each other." She gave a stiff imitation of a laugh. "I mean you didn't really think we would live happily-ever-after _forever_, did you? I was confused. Not that it wasn't _nice_. But I- "

"_Nice?"_

Was that a moment of undisguised hurt that flashed in his eyes? She died a little inside.

"We come from different worlds," she went on, hoping that her voice didn't sound as hollow as she felt inside. "I've realized that I want a family. Like the one I had back at the farm. I have that here."

While he was looking at her, something came into his eyes that she could not fathom. Something deep, something profound. It was as if he was seeing right through her. She looked away, unable to withstand the honesty in that clear gaze, wanting with every fiber of her being to run into his arms and tell him that she didn't mean any of it, that she loved him.

"Sounds so good, maybe _I_ should stay," he said in a low, faintly mocking voice.

Alarmed, she looked up at him, and caught her breath at the downright need that suddenly made her shiver.

"You would hate it here," she said quickly. "It's- structured. I'm sure you would find it all very restrictive. Very restraining. It isn't _you_, Daryl," she finished.

"Well, if that's the way you feel- "

She bowed her head, feeling it all slipping away from her, and maybe disappointed, too, that he would give up so easily.

But Daryl would have his life, she reminded herself sternly. And so would Lathan. All she had to do was to convince Daryl to go away and forget her. Even if he hated her for it . . .

He was scanning the woods behind her now. Once again his glance rested on her.

But he was stone-faced, revealing nothing of his true emotions. Whatever they were.

She looked past him, ignoring all her own seething emotions and began her final argument. The one that would make him leave her, perhaps hate her, forever. "I- "

But she never finished. Without giving her even a hint of a warning, Daryl's hand shot out with the rapidity of a striking snake. Shoving her shoulder hard, he pushed her down to the ground.

She heard one gunshot. Two. Daryl jerked with the impact of at least one bullet while she looked in horror at the blood spreading across his shirtfront. 

* * *

Author's Notes:.

The final chapter to Daryl and Beth's story (The Shadows and the Roses) will be posted on Christmas Eve. (You'll see why.) I have another book coming out soon, so I will be taking a break from fanfiction for a few weeks. Sometime in January, the next chapter of the alternate ending to Beth's death (Saving Beth – What Really Happened) will be out. You might be interested in some of the intense twists to _all_ the characters of the Walking Dead that I have planned.


	15. Chapter 15

_**Beth and Daryl:**_

_**The Shadows and the Roses**_

**Epilogue**

Yesterday had been warm. When darkness fell, a strong wind rose suddenly. It was accompanied by thunder and lightning and rain poured relentlessly all night. In the morning Beth woke to see all the world covered with snow. The air had warmed, however, and now the snow was melting away while the clouds were giving way to hopeful blue.

Beth stood alone, leaning against the weathered rail fence and looking out at the soft mist that blurred the trees beyond what had once been a cornfield. There were still patches of unmelted snow dotting the field. She heard footsteps and turned.

"You're up to something," she said to Daryl as he joined her.

His mysterious air had persisted throughout the morning.

"Me?" he protested innocently, pressing his hand against his chest. "What would I be up to?"

It had been weeks since they had escaped from Meng's group. Meng himself had been killed. Without Meng to give orders, the group had quickly fallen apart. Offering little resistance, they had let all the prisoners go free. Daryl was healing from the gunshot wound in his shoulder. In a few days they would set out to try and find the rest of the group.

"There's something I want to show you." Daryl took Beth's hand in his and led her across the yard to the cabin.

Lathan was sitting on the porch, along with Anna and Emily. Carol was there, too, smiling at something Emily was saying to her. Everyone stopped what they were doing when they saw Beth. No one would look directly at her, which made her even more suspicious.

"What is going on?" she asked, narrowing her gaze as she looked up at Daryl once again.

"You're so suspicious," he said with mock sternness. But his frown was followed by a low laugh as he went up the steps.

He pushed the cabin door open and waited for her to go inside. Than he followed her in.

Early sunlight was pouring into the room through the open door and the windows behind her. It spread warmly across the wooden floor where Beth stopped. Dust motes sparkled in the golden halo of sunlight that surrounded her.

"Daryl," she began with gentle impatience. "If this is bad news, just tell- "

She never finished. As she turned, she saw a tree in the corner of the cabin. A beautiful, softly-green tree that filled the entire cabin with the scent of pine. A Christmas tree, she realized. It was decorated with dangling spoons and forks, foil stars and strips of bright red material tied into bows.

Beth whirled around and stared at Daryl. "I- " she began. But she couldn't find the words.

"I wanted to surprise you."

There were tears brimming in her eyes when she turned to look back at the tree.

"Carol, Anna and Emily did all the decorating," she heard.

"How did you get this past me?" she asked in wonder.

"It wasn't easy," he confessed with a smile in his voice.

"What day is it?" she asked softly.

"Christmas Eve,"

He came up behind her and slipped his strong arms around her waist. Then he pulled her tightly against his chest and rested his chin against her hair. "I figured you've missed too many of them,"

"Christmas," she breathed. "I didn't even know."

"I wanted you to remember our first one together," he murmured against the silken, sun-lit strands of her hair.

"Thank you," she whispered, deeply touched by his thoughtfulness. "Thank you for giving this back to me."

"I have something else for you," he said as he let go of her and handed her a package wrapped in red cloth. There were other presents, she saw, tucked under the tree.

"Presents, too? But I don't have anything for you."

"I already have what I want," he said as he looked at her meaningfully.

She untied the package and pulled the fabric back, not knowing that she was giving Daryl the best present he'd ever had. The sweet smile on her face.

She pressed her hand against her chest and laughed when she read the label on the can.

"There's more. I found a supply of freeze-dried foods hidden in the attic," Daryl told her.

After she unwrapped each package, there before her were all the ingredients she needed to make at least a dozen pizzas.

"And- " Daryl said with a dramatic sweep of his hand.

"And?" she repeated wonderingly. What more could there be?

"You were worried about him. So . . . we found him."

_ Him?_

Beth gasped in astonishment when the fluffy white dog, the one at the funeral home, the one with one eye, came bounding into the room. The dog immediately ran into Daryl's arms and commenced licking Daryl's face happily. Then the dog ran over to Beth and gave her the same exuberant greeting.

"How?" she asked, laughing under the onslaught of unbridled doggy kisses, and seeing the others now gathered in the doorway.

"We got lucky," Daryl said. "_I_ got lucky."

As they stood together in the square of bright sunlight that flooded the room, Beth gave Daryl a spontaneous hug, one that went a long way in banishing away the shadows of the past. They both realized on that very special Christmas Eve that they had received the greatest, the most precious gift of all. They learned that even in the shadows, roses still will bloom.

* * *

_the end_


	16. Chapter 16

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

A Beth and Daryl fanfiction continuation co-written by Ziggurat Rolsovitch

_Love knows not time_

_Nor utters never,_

_For e'en in death_

_Love is forever._

* * *

There were elemental pathways in her brain, connections made once upon a time. Of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, of mockingbirds and wonderlands. These had become a part of who she was. They influenced all her thought processes, even the now-damaged ones.

It is a profound truth that thoughts are as real as the neurons and the chemicals that produce them, as real as the emotions that are the core of identity. Because humans are survival-driven beings, the healing of those processes had already begun. So she knew that dragons could be slain, knew that knights took sacred vows and lived by noble codes. She knew, too, that princesses could be wakened from deep, deep sleeps . . .

It was a slow awakening, one that came at dawn when the mist was yet covering the fields and the moisture was dripping from the trees. There were no bird songs to welcome the light. There was only a gradual seeping of grey into the darkness as the stars faded one by one.

The earth was soft and still unsettled, in part because the grave was only hours old. The grave was shallow as well, thanks to the obstacles of rocks and tree roots and the necessity for haste, and the fact that the dirt had been laid gently upon her. And more than these, in response to a prayer, something else summoned her, reached down through the murky veil of contagion and despair that was covering the earth, helping to remind her of princesses overcoming even death.

It was a lonely awakening. There was no one to hear the sudden, gasping breath. No one to hear the quiet whimpers that followed. Those sounds were muffled by the damp earth that entombed her.

In her hazy, disconnected thoughts, she did not know where she was. It was better that way. She was only vaguely aware of her immediate surroundings. There was darkness and there was pressure holding her in an impersonal, cold embrace. At first she could not move. There followed a frantic, instinctive effort to free herself.

There was no coffin, only a sheet wrapped with loving hands around the body, and by the grace of that loving gesture, she fought her way upward. The mourners who had left her behind had made other choices that now worked to her advantage. For one, there had been no need to insure that she would stay dead. After all, it had been a head wound.

One hand first broke the soft surface. Then the other. Finally she sat up and fought her way free of the mud and the clinging shroud, monumental tasks in her weakened state. And then, exhausted from her efforts, she sank back down into the slight indention in the earth and curled into a fetal position while blood began to seep from her wound again. She was as near to death as it was possible to go, but she drew regular, if shallow, breaths into her lungs and her heart continued to beat with a faint, but steady rhythm. And more importantly, she knew she had a reason to live.

A single bird began its aubade in the trees above her, filling her mind over and over again with the thought of new beginnings. She lay there unmoving while the sunlight grew, banished away the mist and wrapped her in its healing warmth.

* * *

_ "I can't go forward until I go back."_

"She's in the ground, Daryl. She's gone."

Daryl got in Rick's face and jabbed a finger in midair. "Don't say that again," he warned through clenched teeth.

Rick saw that Daryl's hand was shaking and he knew he had to defuse the situation as quickly as possible.

"We were lucky to find this place," Rick said, still trying to convince him to stay.

Daryl made a scoffing sound in his throat. "Lucky? Not so's you'd notice." The muscles tensed in his jaw as he fought for control. "Now you've decided to head for Washington again," he went on. "Washington was one of the most corrupt, incompetent places on the face of the earth even before all this started. What makes you think things have changed for the better? Did you even think it through? Do you ever?" He shook his head. "If you want to find something worth fighting for, you won't find it in Washington."

"Think of the group, Daryl," Rick tried. "We can't split up now."

"Yeah, about that. Have you taken a good look at the group lately? Everyone's about given up. Everyone's pissed off or hopeless. That's not what I had with- with Beth." Only now did Daryl realize how difficult it was for him to even say her name. He stalked across the wide aisle of the barn, stopped and then turned back abruptly.

"All this time and we still haven't figured out the basics of survival, like food, water and shelter. There's got to be something better than this. Hell, we're even turning on each other."

Seated on a hay bale nearby, Abraham stopped sharpening his knife and glanced coldly up at Daryl. Not a shred of emotion showed on his face, but he obviously suspected that Daryl was talking about him.

After a deep sigh, Daryl said wearily, "I shouldn't have let you talk me into going this far. I _am_ going back, Rick. You can't stop me."

"You can't change things."

Daryl gave into his frustration. "Look, I get it. You don't want me to even talk about her. You want me to shut up, like she never existed."

"That's not what I want you to do."

"Like hell it isn't."

"Look, I know how you feel- "

"You don't know anything about it," Daryl spat.

"If anyone knows, it would be me," Rick said in a carefully-controlled voice. "I lost someone close to me, too."

"You didn't have with Lori what I had with Beth. It wasn't anywhere near the same. All you know about is a wife who couldn't make up her mind- " He stopped himself before he went any further.

He had rattled Rick. Daryl could see the change in his face.

A part of Daryl said the hell with everybody else, Rick included. Rick hadn't offered his support, even the emotional kind, while he had stood by Rick during every decision he had ever made. With no questions asked. Rick could have stood by him, just this once.

"Why'd you have to leave so fast?" Daryl wanted to know.

"We had to hurry. There were walkers coming."

"And you couldn't have handled some walkers?"

"Maybe we could have. But we've also learned when it's time to move on."

Daryl knew that Rick expected him to do the same.

"You should have let me decide that. You had no right to make that decision for me."

Daryl leaned slightly forward. His voice was husky with emotion. "No right. Because your decisions are always about what's right for _you_."

There was a brief flicker of emotion in Rick's eyes. He quickly veiled it, and said, "We'll be here for a few more days. And then we're heading for Washington. You can change your mind and go with us."

Daryl walked away, pounded the side of the barn with his fist, doing damage, both to the wall and to his hand, but he welcomed the pain. It was easier to handle outside than it was inside.

He paused for a moment. He didn't turn around, but he said, "We're not a fucking pack of wild animals who don't know right from wrong. Because we do and we can't pretend we don't. You made the wrong decision for me. But you were right about one thing, Rick.

We _are_ the walking dead. Because we're letting everything good die inside of us."

* * *

_ Daryl drew a deep breath and let it out slowly._ Maybe going back was his way of holding on to the past. A better past. Maybe it was his way of being close to her. Hell, he knew it didn't make sense, but he had to go. He'd been too crushed by grief on their way here to even think it all the way through, but had struggled more and more the farther they got. And now? Now he had to find her.

Something that he could not explain, even to himself, drove him. He had to have a place where he could go to mourn her. It needed to be fixed in his mind so that in some strange way he would not lose her entirely. He had nothing left of her, and she had been the one bright ray of sunshine in his life. She had taught him how to love. Really love. Could he just accept this world of death as his only reality? He could not. He had to know where her last resting place was. He owed that to her. He owed that to himself. He needed to tell her how much he had loved her, how much he still loved her.

His last memories of her were agonizingly fresh in his brain. He had been holding her in his arms. She had been limp, but there had still been warmth in her body. It seemed to him that she would wake up, that she would look up at him, smile and tell him she would be all right. Then she would gently chide him for his tears and tell him he should have had more faith.

But she didn't wake up. "Don't touch her," he had warned them all. For a long time he would not let them take her from him. But after darkness had set in, he had fallen in to a sleep of complete exhaustion. Upon awakening, he had found her gone. He had reacted with a violence that he had never felt before in his life, all his grief finding expression in one emotion, anger towards the ones who had taken her.

He'd scared them. He knew that. "It's for your own good," they had told him. "It's better this way."

But it wasn't better.

* * *

_Maggie looked like hell. The hopelessness was_ written all over her face, and it just got worse with each day. She seemed to be angry just to be alive. He didn't understand that. She had Glenn. That should give her something to live for.

Daryl repeated his question. "Where is she?"

"You can't change what happened."

It wasn't like he didn't know that with every fiber of his being. But he was tired of hearing it. "You've got no reason _not_ to tell me," he said. "Just tell me, Maggie," he whispered hoarsely. It was a plea, an emotional, heart-rending one.

Maggie herself had lost her last tie to the past and she knew what it had cost her. She could not withstand the stricken look on his face. So she told him.

"The church," she said. "Around back. There's a big oak tree. Under there."

"Did you at least put a marker?"

"There wasn't time."

He nodded. That was all he needed from her. He turned to go.

At the door Maggie's voice stopped him. "There's just death waiting for you back there, Daryl. She's at peace now."

Yeah, but he wasn't.


	17. Chapter 17

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

The road had been long and monotonous, deserted by both the living and the dead. He had never felt more alone in his life, more empty. He was eager to reach his destination, and yet he dreaded the end with every step.

Just as hopelessness held the group in a relentless grip, Daryl fought it himself. Life had become a brutal lesson in suffering and loss. One by one, everyone you cared about was gone, usually with no warning, with only shadows of memories left behind. There were no pictures anymore, no funerals, no burials where you said goodbye. There was nothing left to hold onto.

He tried to tell himself that she was at peace now, just like Maggie had said, but no matter how hard he tried, he found no consolation in the thought. The bitter truth that lay as heavy as a stone inside him was that he had not protected her from a violent, senseless death. And no matter how much he wished he could change what had happened, he knew that there was no going back, and no undoing it. The harsh reality that he fought against facing was that he was never going to have anything good in his life again. He would not hear her voice. Or see her smile. He would never hold her again.

While grief clawed like a relentless demon at his soul, he saw the sign for the town up ahead: SPRING HILL WELCOMES YOU. With a heavier heart, he trudged on.

Another mile, maybe two, should put him at the church. He was bone weary but resting was not an option. Stopping meant letting the pain catch up with him. So he pushed himself relentlessly onward.

He had found a surprising abundance of nourishment on the way. In unexpected places. At a small truck stop. In an abandoned vehicle. It was as if some invisible force was helping him along, guiding him when he had little will to see to his basic needs. There was only one thought in his brain. To reach Beth.

He found the grave right away. It was just where Maggie had said it would be. Underneath the tree. It was unmarked. And forlorn-looking. There was no stone. No name. There was just a faint indentation in the earth to tell that she had ever existed. It was a woefully inadequate testimony to a life. To the woman that had changed _his_ life.

He hesitated for the space of several heart beats, then got down on his heels. He swallowed hard as he stared down at the sunken dirt, fighting the final breakdown that he knew would come, already feeling the tears that desperately wanted to come to the surface.

Maggie had been right, too, about it being a hastily-dug grave. His mouth curled with bitterness. She had been wrapped in a sheet, Maggie had told him. They didn't even get the sheet completely buried. Hell, he thought fiercely. Beth deserved better than that.

It had rained last night and the dirt had settled smoothly around several small, muddy pools in the unforgiving clay soil. "Damn," he ground out loud. She had deserved-

That's when he noticed that something wasn't right. His first thought was that wild animals had started to dig her up. Or maybe walkers. With a sick feeling in his belly, he reached down to cover her back up, like a parent might re-cover a sleeping child with a blanket. But as he looked closer at the disturbed dirt, his breath left him in a shocked gasp.

He quickly shoved some of the dirt away. Then, on his knees, he frantically began to dig with his bare hands. He kept digging till he was clutching one thing only. An empty, bloodied sheet.

* * *

_"She should be dead."_

"She should be," Lowell agreed, nodding slowly without taking his eyes off of her.

She had been covered in mud when they had discovered her. They'd brought her here, cleaned her up as best they could, and wrapped her in blankets. Then they waited and did the only thing they could do. They tried to make her comfortable.

"I've heard about snake-bit animals burying themselves in the mud and surviving," Lowell said. "Maybe her being in the mud, too, somehow saved her."

Maybe there were healing properties in the soil. Lowell just didn't know. What he did know was that none of the normal rules applied anymore. Especially not the old ones about life and death. You learned to expect anything.

"We don't need this right now," Kyler said quietly.

Lowell leaned his elbows on his knees and watched the steady breathing of the young woman on the sofa. Lowell agreed with Kyler. They didn't need this. But their silent guest was hanging onto life, not death like so many others around them. That was something they couldn't turn their back on.

"_Someone_ cared enough to bury her," Kyler commented.

"I guess it's a good thing they don't know what they did," Lowell said.

At least he _hoped_ someone hadn't purposely buried her alive. They'd seen a lot of terrible things, and burying someone alive probably wouldn't be the worst of them.

"Maybe we should tie her up," Kyler suggested. "Just in case she does, uh, die. "

"It might be a good idea," Lowell agreed.

"Of course, since she has a brain injury already, Lo," his friend conjectured. "Maybe she wouldn't turn."

Lowell shrugged slightly. "Maybe," he muttered, half to himself.

Maybe she wouldn't turn. But there was no sense taking chances. He got up to get some rope.

* * *

_ Lowell cleaned up the disposable dishes from lunch._ There wasn't any food left. There never was. But it was important not to draw rats and mice. Or bugs. So cleanliness did matter. He finally understood the importance of that lesson from childhood. And who knew what the bugs carried these days. What with all the rotting corpses around for them to lay eggs in, they were the perfect disease incubators. The rats, too, had probably found a new food source in the living dead, and everyone knew that rats could spread disease.

He settled back in his recliner and dozed a little, finally falling into a deep sleep, only to jerk awake suddenly in the middle of a nightmare where it was starting all over again. It was the same dream he'd had many times before, but it never failed to terrify him.

He rubbed his eyes, recalling a better time when there wasn't much more to think about than hanging out with his friends or how to save up enough money to buy the latest video game. Back then he couldn't even have imagined worrying about how to keep a half-dead woman alive.

Video games, he thought with a faint, audible scoff. They were living one. A damned scary one. It used to be that life had consisted of nothing more worrisome than manufactured stress where the zombies weren't real and you could turn them off when you and your friends got too tired to play anymore.

His friends were all gone now. So was his family. Kyler was the only one he had left. If his father was still alive out there somewhere, he hadn't bothered to try and find him. But, hey, why should things be any different now? His father hadn't cared whether he was alive or dead when he _could_ have asked, so the last thing Lowell expected was for him to come knocking at the door and renew a non-existent relationship.

But an absent father had become the least of his worries. He still didn't know why he had been spared when the rest of his family was gone. Maybe there was a reason. Maybe there wasn't. He'd spent a long time grieving and trying to make sense out of it all. But the end of each day boiled down to the same grim reality. Survival. He knew his mother would have wanted him to survive. So he survived.

Gradually he adapted to his environment. Not that he wasn't still adapting. And he never stopped wondering what was happening in the world beyond Spring Hill. Beyond Georgia. Beyond America. Was it the same everywhere? Or would the National Guard come along some day and rescue them? It was a faint hope, but he wasn't ready to let go of it completely. Not yet.

He stared at the woman for a while to make sure that she was still breathing. She was.

They had improvised a sled and dragged her here. _Here_ was Kyler's parent's house. They had been preppers, so the hidden room with its stock of food, weapons and damned near every book on survival ever written, had done what they were supposed to do. They had kept them alive. In what Lowell now considered _the_ absolute worst-case scenario. A zombie apocalypse.

Kyle's father had used that phrase often. Worst-case scenario. But it had been a joke. Or so they had thought. They'd never really taken it seriously. Until they'd had a crash course in survival. Against the zombies. And against the people who weren't the prepper kind, weren't prepared, and wanted what you had. Because survival, when it became desperate enough, could be an ugly thing. It hadn't taken them long to figure that out.

He glanced over at Kyle, who was reading a comic book. Kyle had found a stash of them one day and dragged them back here. They did make attempts to maintain some degree of normalcy, and they knew that entertainment, or what now amounted to something to keep your mind busy, was as important as food and water. It kept you from losing it. It kept you from giving up.

"You know, this is just what we need, Lo," Kyle said as he slowly turned another page. "Armor. We could come up with something like that, couldn't we?"

"Might be a good idea," Lowell replied as he looked at the woman again.

They needed to get some fluids into her. And soon. If not, she was going to die of dehydration if nothing else.

He was wondering how they could accomplish it, when he frowned suddenly and looked at her more closely. Maybe he was just seeing things. The light was dim and he hadn't been looking directly at her. But he thought he'd seen her hand move. And then he almost jumped out of his chair when he saw that her eyes were wide open and she was staring straight at him.


	18. Chapter 18

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 3_**

* * *

Daryl knew he couldn't rest until he found her. Or at least until he knew what had happened to her. He had heard of people surviving gunshot wounds. Even to the head. It was possible for a small caliber bullet to travel along the skull without causing any major damage. But there was no way of knowing what had happened here. Even if Beth had somehow miraculously survived, he agonized over the thought that she had been buried alive. Or that she had crawled off somewhere and that she was dead _now_ because there hadn't been anyone to care for her. Just the thought of what he would have to do if he found her and she had turned put him close to the edge.

But that didn't seem to be the case. There were two sets of footprints leading down to the grave and then back up the hill again. And it was clear that her body, whether she was alive or dead, had been loaded onto some kind of crude sled and dragged off.

The heels of his own boots sank into the rain-softened dirt as he stood there pondering what might have happened to her. There was no way of knowing. Not without following the tracks to see where they led.

He lifted his head. On the top of the hill he could see two stiffly-moving figures. Walkers. Their snarls grew louder as they spotted him and immediately headed down the hill. One of them stumbled and came crashing down the hill in almost graceful somersaults, stopping only when it bashed its head in on a rock. It didn't get up again. He quickly took care of the other walker and went back to examining the tracks.

Someone knew where Beth was. Someone had dragged her away from that grave. Had they dug her up, too? Had she been alive and gotten out herself? Or had she turned after she had been buried? Which didn't make sense. No one would drag off a walker.

He squinted into the surrounding forest. He knew only one thing for certain. She had been in that grave and now she was gone. She hadn't walked away on her own. Her prints weren't anywhere to be seen. While he agonized over the possibilities, afraid to hope, but more afraid to give up all hope, he set out. With one purpose in mind, that of finding the woman he loved. He didn't know where the trail would lead him, but he would follow her to hell if he had to.

* * *

_ "Do you know what happened to you?"_

Beth tried to shake her head but the movement caused an immediate, intense explosion of pain inside her brain. She closed her eyes, waiting for the shards of agony to settle back down again to a manageable level.

"You don't have to talk," she heard. "Just lay there. You're safe here."

She didn't recognize the voice that was speaking to her, but she was aware enough to know that she wasn't lying on the ground in the woods somewhere. There were no snarls and no growls to worry about. Wherever she was, it was quiet. Peacefully quiet. She was comfortable and warm and the voice nearby was soothing. That was enough for her at the moment. But she was thirsty. Terribly thirsty.

She opened her eyes slowly and surveyed the room she was in, within her limited range of vision, that is. The light was dim. Heavy curtains were drawn over a small window. There were pictures on the walls, one of a meadow full of wildflowers. Another frame held a biblical passage done in cross stitch:

_For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet_

_ from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?_

There were book shelves filled with cans and white plastic buckets and row after row of books.

"I'm Lowell," a shadow above her said. "This is Kyle."

"Beth," she whispered back.

Lowell wasn't sure what to do. She looked like hell. If you didn't look too closely, you might think she was a zombie. Her skin had an ashen cast to it. Her cheeks were sunken in and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was stiff and matted with mud and dried blood. But she was definitely alive. Not dead-alive, but the real kind of alive. He watched as she weakly licked her dry lips.

"As soon as you're up to it," Lowell said as he leaned over her. "We'll give you some water and see if you can keep that down. But right now, you don't have to move. We'll take care of everything."

They had rigged up a system for collecting rain water, so that wasn't a problem. They just needed to get her to drink. Lowell had already decided that if she survived, a nice beef broth would help build her strength back up. They had plenty of that.

Kyle's father also had emergency medical books in his survival library. Lowell had read everything he could about bullet wounds to the head. He knew that most people didn't survive. But some did. If she had survived this long, he knew she had a fighting chance. He was going to do his damnedest to improve her odds.

"Do you know what happened to you?" he asked.

"No," she breathed feebly. She knew better than to shake her head by now.

Maybe it was better she didn't remember what had happened to her, Lowell thought. She needed to do one thing only. She needed to put all her strength into getting better.

* * *

_Daryl saw places where they had rested, and _places, too, where they had had trouble. He also saw where they had probably hidden for a while before continuing on. They were not heavy footprints. Both sets had been made by gym shoes. It had taken both of them to pull the sled, and still, nowhere did he see Beth's footprints.

He saw where they had eaten a candy bar and then buried the wrapper in the mud. It meant they were smart enough to be cautious not to leave any traces that they had been there. Except for the tracks, of course. They couldn't do much about that. They were probably hoping more rain would come and eventually wipe them out. One thing Daryl knew for certain. They knew they were taking a chance and maybe putting themselves at risk. _If_ it was true that they were actually helping Beth.

He began to see signs that they were getting tired. They rested more, struggled more. At one point one of them fell and was on his hands and knees before he got back up again. But they never abandoned the sled. He tried not to let that put hope in his heart, but he began to believe that it was very possible that Beth was still alive.

Near dusk he saw that the half-washed-out trail was cut up and nearly obliterated by a crisscross of walker tracks, which added to his frustration. He didn't want the sun to go down and put off his search for an entire night. He didn't want walkers slowing him down, either. Worse than that, he knew that struggling with that sled would make them an easier target for walkers. Eying the tracks with more determination, he pushed onward.

The tracks took a sharp detour from the semi-straight line they had been following. They suddenly swung wide. He soon saw why. There was a wire fence with a strand of barbed wire strung across the top of it. It would have been a difficult obstacle to get over. Which told him that they knew the area well. They knew long before they got to the fence to avoid it.

It was getting dark fast was out there somewhere. She had definitely been through a lot already and he had no idea what she was going through right now. Maybe she was even waiting for him to find her. It drove him relentlessly onward.

He was crossing a shallow creek when he smelled smoke on the air. That's when he saw the red glow on the horizon.

"Hell," he muttered to himself. "That's the last thing I need right now."

* * *

_ "We probably shouldn't leave her alone."_

Lowell didn't think it was a good idea, either. But he wasn't going to let Kyle go out there by himself.

If that glow on the horizon was some kind of wildfire, they needed to know. Especially if it was sweeping their way. He knew that wildfires could travel fast so he had to make some kind of quick decision. He decided he would go with Kyle to check out what was happening, then they would head right back here. They would jog up to the cemetery, which was the highest elevation for miles around. From there, hopefully, they would be able to tell what was going on. Beth should be fine on her own for a little while.

They told her of their plans and she agreed to wait for them. She didn't have much choice there. If for some reason they didn't return, she had plenty of food and water. She had weapons. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, but it was always dangerous going outside. They'd had their share of close calls in the past. But they'd learned a lot about survival. Lowell suspected Beth had, too, or she wouldn't have survived this long. Not in this world. After a few more hurried instructions to Beth, they set out.

They had just made it to the cemetery when they saw blacker shadows looming up out of the darkness not far away from them. They silently slid down behind two big tombstones and stayed there until they knew what they were dealing with.

They soon heard voices and knew who the men were. They had run into them before and had seen some of the things they were capable of. Ruthless didn't even begin to describe them. Right now they were like hounds on the scent of prey. Their shouts confirmed Lowell's worst fear. They had been following their tracks.

If darkness did not slow the men down, it wouldn't take them long to find the right house. And Beth. There was only one thing they could do. They were going to have to make a run for it and try to lose the men in the darkness. In the worst case scenario, they had to beat the men there. And hope like hell they didn't run into any zombies on the way that would slow them down. Or worse.

He motioned to Kyle. They used a combination of military hand signals and some they had invented on their own. Kyle understood him perfectly. He always did. That's probably what had kept them alive this long.

Kyle ran first. Lowell quickly followed, praying as hard as he could that they weren't seen.

At first they weren't. And then there was a shout. Kyle tripped and went down.

"Come on, Kyle," Lowell gritted in a strained voice as he reached his friend. "We gotta run."

Kyle was back on his feet, and he did run.

"Get that kid," a rough voice shouted behind them. "I want to know how the little shit has survived this long."

Their closest pursuer, a huge bear of a man, could run faster than the others apparently.

Kyle was slightly ahead of him now, but he turned back and hesitated, maybe to make sure Lowell was all right. "Lo," he called out as if he was disoriented.

The man closed in on Kyle and Kyle froze. He seemed paralyzed with fear. With the red glow from the fire lighting his face, Lowell saw the sheer terror on his friend's face.

With a hand the size of a grizzly's paw, the man grabbed the front of Kyle's shirt. He shook him like a ragdoll as he leaned over him. Lowell saw the huge knife glinting in the firelight. He only heard part of what the man was saying to Kyle.

"I'll gut you like a catfish if you don't tell me- "

Lowell didn't think twice. He lunged forward to help Kyle, terrified he wouldn't get there in time.

There was a horrifying moment, one that Lowell thought was going to be Kyle's last. But the man towering over Kyle suddenly stiffened and went still. Lowell thought it was because he had seen him coming. He saw with astonishment, however, that the man had an arrow sticking out of one eye.

Another man stepped out of the shadows. He was gripping a bow in one hand.

"Come on," the stranger said in a husky voice to both of them. "Let's get out of here."

"You're not one of them?" Lowell asked uncertainly, not at all sure if they should follow him. This man looked pretty lethal himself. They had just seen what he could do with that bow.

"Hell, no," Daryl answered.

They heard shouts in the darkness and knew they had no choice but to take a chance and follow the stranger into the woods.

"You know those men?" Daryl asked over his shoulder as they hurried through the trees.

"We know _what_ they are," Kyle answered breathlessly. "We try to avoid them."

The stranger grunted under his breath as if he, too, had had experience with the same kind of men.

They stopped to catch their breath when there were no longer sounds of pursuit.

"Those two following us, they're part of a larger group?" the stranger asked with a jerk of his bearded chin in the direction that they had just come from.

Still trying to catch his breath, Kyle nodded.

"Then you know what we have to do," the stranger said ominously. "They're more dangerous than walkers if they keep trailing us."

_Walkers_, Lowell repeated silently. But he agreed. "You're right. What do you want us to do?"

"Nothin'. You just wait right here for me."

After the stranger had vanished into the darkness, Kyle asked, "Should we wait for him, Lo?"

"I don't know. We can't see the subdivision from here. We need to try and keep him from going there."

"How?" Kyle wanted to know.

Lowell was still trying to figure that out. They needed to get back and see how Beth was doing. She was in a strange place and she would be completely in the dark. She might be worried right now that maybe that they weren't coming back. Somehow, they were going to have to find an opportunity to slip away into the darkness and hope this man couldn't track them back there. Maybe this _would_ be their only chance to do that.

But the stranger returned faster than they would have thought possible, and let them know, "There's nobody following us now." He didn't say more than that.

Lowell and Kyle shared a glance, even more convinced now that they shouldn't lead him back to the house. He could take everything they had. He could kill them. And Beth, too. Weak as she was she would be at his mercy if he turned out to be as bad as he looked.

"Fire's dying out, too," he said. "At least it's not headed this way. You from around here?" he asked abruptly.

"Sort of," Kyle answered evasively.

After a pause, the man asked another question. "So where are you two headed?"

Lowell shrugged. "Wherever."

"Wherever, huh." The stranger got down on his heels, drew a wicked-looking hunting knife out of his boot, and, with quick, efficient movements, cut something that he took out of a vest pocket.

"Yeah, we were, uh, kind of passing through," Lowell told him.

The stranger returned the knife to his boot, straightened, and stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger for a moment as he looked back at them. Then he held something out towards them. "Jerky. You want some?"

Lowell shook his head, but Kyle reached out and took a piece.

"So, where've you _been_ staying?" the stranger asked.

"Around," Kyle answered cautiously. "Anywhere that looks halfway safe. We move around a lot."

"You've just been wandering around with no place to stay?" Daryl asked.

"Pretty much," Kyle answered him.

Lowell didn't know if the stranger believed them or not, but there wasn't much more they could do to convince him. He either believed them, or he didn't. Whatever he did believe, they watched as he sat down and made himself comfortable, resting his wrists on his knees as he steadily regarded them.

"So were you part of that group at one time?" he asked. "Sometimes it takes a while to realize you don't fit in."

"No, we would never have been a part of a group like that," Kyle answered right away with an almost perceptible shudder. "We've managed to avoid them. For the most part," he added.

"Must be because you move around a lot," the stranger commented under his breath as he took a bite of jerky.

"They were bad," Kyle went on, maybe because he was nervous and he had to talk. "They'd rob anyone. And if you were with someone else, they held one while they forced the other to go into the city and get what they wanted."

"They caught us once," Lowell said. "Before we knew better. They held Kyle and sent me into the city for alcohol and food. I barely made it out alive."

"And then they let you go?" Daryl asked.

"No, we escaped."

Daryl narrowed his gaze. "That must have taken a lot of guts."

"No," Lowell replied. "It took a lot of desperation. We didn't have any choice. They beat Kyle up pretty bad."

"And they said they were going to kill us if we didn't- " Kyle began.

Daryl noticed that Lowell was furtively shaking his head and Kyle immediately went silent.

Lowell shifted his weight uncomfortably. The man's gaze was piercing. It was as if he could see right inside his head and read his thoughts. He was pretty sure he had seen him shake his head.

"Well, _I'm_ about done in," the stranger said. "If you don't have anywhere to go, we might as well camp right here."

_We_. Daryl could see the word shook them up a little. It sounded like he wasn't giving them much choice.

"Here?" Kyle squeaked, probably feeling as trapped as Lowell did.

"Yeah. It's as good a place as any. Unless you know of a better place."

Both boys shook their heads as they continued to watch him warily. They weren't about to tell him anything. Not yet. Which Daryl thought was a smart thing to do. But he had already decided they were smart. And obviously, they knew how to keep their mouths shut. He also knew, by the prints of their shoes, that it had been these two who had dragged Beth away from the grave.

"It'll be a cold night tonight," Daryl said after a deep sigh as he settled himself at the base of the tree. "But I guess if you're used to sleeping out _wherever_, I can handle it, too."

It would be one long, miserable night out in the open. Daryl could see they weren't used to this. He could only wonder how long they would last. Kyle was already shivering and his teeth were chattering loud enough to wake the dead. Right now they were whispering in the dark among themselves, sometimes making signs, but trying not to be obvious about it. Yeah, they were definitely planning something.

And it didn't take them long to try and make a break for it after they thought he was asleep.

But Daryl rose up and grabbed the back of Lowell's shirt, stopping him from going anywhere. When Daryl raised himself up to his full height, Lowell looked up at him much the same as David must have looked at Goliath.

"Now you want to tell me where she is?" Daryl asked in a voice like tempered steel.


	19. Chapter 19

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 4_**

* * *

Beth was alive.

That's all Daryl could think about as he stood before the big white house.

He knew that the tracks would have led him here if the two boys hadn't. He knew, too, that the tracks could lead other people here just as easily. But right now-

Right now he needed to see her more than he needed to take his next breath.

He stepped up onto the wide, wrap-around porch. Dawn was just breaking in the East. The first birds were singing in the trees like they did every morning, like they didn't even comprehend things like zombie apocalypses, like their lives and their routines weren't disrupted at all. Lucky birds.

He looked at the porch swing with its brightly-colored cushions and the flower pots filled with only dirt and withered stalks. He saw the empty hummingbird feeder hanging forlornly in one corner, heard the faint, ghostly music of wind chimes. He took it all in, then he followed Lowell and Kyle inside the house.

Family photos adorned the walls and the mantle over the fireplace, legacy of a better time. Kyle was in some of them, at different ages, along with what must have been other siblings. In the hallway, he passed one picture of both Lowell and Kyle when they had been much younger. They were smiling into the camera with the ocean behind them. It must have been a memorable day, one that was now captured forever behind glass. He understood just how far they had come in trusting him when they led him upstairs to a hidden room in the attic.

And there she was, standing in the middle of the room. She turned her face at the sound of the opening door and her eyes grew wide.

Yeah, she looked like hell. Just like Lowell had said. But at the same time she was also the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He was so overcome at the sight of her at first that he couldn't say anything. Then he crossed the room in several hurried strides, and, silent still, wrapped his arms around her and just held her for a long time.

He drew back, holding her at arm's length, careful of her fragile state and mindful of her wound.

"I- " he began. But he couldn't finish. What could he say? How part of him had died that day? How he thought he would never see her again? That out of all the darkness that surrounded them, losing her was the worst thing that had happened to him? Or how he wished with everything in him that he had protected her and that she had never gone through it all? What words would be sufficient?

He finally did find his voice and said what was uppermost in his mind. "I love you."

His heart was beating with a fullness he had never known before. He still couldn't believe that she had come back to him. But there was her smile. And her breathless "Daryl" that said so much. That said everything.

Tears threatened. He fought them down, but ended up having to wipe one or two stray ones away. His voice was rough with emotion when he finally said, "Don't ever do that to me again."

* * *

_"We'll be leaving," Daryl said. "We were part of a group_. And Beth wants to find her sister."

"Was it a good group?" Lowell asked.

"About as good as could be expected," Daryl answered him without going into details. "You're welcome to come with us. I know you need to think this over, but we don't have that much time."

It was a big decision for them. Daryl understood that. They had survived here. Survived well. Out there, the world wasn't nearly as safe. Add to that they would be leaving Kyle's boyhood home. That had to be hard. Maybe it was the hardest part. Lowell's home was probably close by, too.

"The men who were after you, were they part of a big group?" Daryl asked.

"Pretty big," Lowell replied. "We never knew how many there were for sure, but they seem to be everywhere now. They take what they want and they've figured out that we must have something to take."

Daryl nodded. "There's no rain in the forecast. And when they find their dead friends- "

"They'll be able to follow our tracks right to this house," Lowell finished. "Right?"

"I could do it with my eyes closed," Daryl told him. He couldn't be anything less than honest with them. They had saved Beth. He owed them a great deal for that. More than he could ever repay.

After a sigh, Lowell said, "It's been getting more and more dangerous here by ourselves. We've been wondering if there were any decent people out there."

"Yeah," Kyle added. "We kind of hoped there would be safety in numbers."

Daryl knew that wasn't necessarily true. Not in all cases. Not in most cases. He didn't want to pressure them, but he said, "The longer we wait, the more we're pushing our luck."

Lowell nodded to Kyle and then looked back at Daryl. "All right. We'll go with you."

The first hurdle was out of the way. Now they had to get busy.

"One of these houses must have a decent vehicle that works," Daryl said. "We can load up your supplies and then head out."

"And Kyle's comic books," Lowell said abstractedly as he looked around. Clearly, it wasn't an easy decision for either one of them. Both were still struggling.

"And Kyle's comic books," Daryl said, wasting no time as he hoisted up the heavy box of comics.

Once their decision was made and they adjusted to it, Lowell and Kyle went into overdrive. "We know the roads where they've set up ambushes," Lowell said as he picked up a box of freeze-dried foods. "We can avoid those. And I think I know where we can find just the kind of vehicle you're looking for."

Between his trips downstairs, Beth asked Daryl, "Do you really think we'll be able to find them?"

"Carol will leave a trail for me," he answered her.

Leaving trails was the only way of communicating left to them. So they got innovative. They had to. If anyone could follow a trail, Beth knew it was Daryl.

Lowell led them to a Hummer, of all things, parked in one of the garages. After the discovery, Daryl was like a kid on Christmas morning. Or at least like a kid who actually got presents at Christmas. Siphoning gas from the surrounding neighborhood, they were able to fill the tank and also several spare cans of fuel.

Bent over the engine of the second vehicle that they were planning to take, Daryl felt Beth's arms slide around his waist from behind. He went still as she leaned against him.

"You're the reason I fought so hard," she murmured against his back.

He straightened and placed his hands over hers. Deep in his heart was not just horror, but an unresolved resentment over the fact that they had buried her alive in the first place. He wanted to think that if he had been here, it never would have happened, that somehow he would have known. But he did not say that to her. "Instead he said, "Keep fighting," he said. "Always keep fighting."

"This was a good place," she said after a sigh.

"There has to be other good places out there," he said. "If not, we'll make one."

He felt her nod and told her, "You know you're distracting me."

"Am I?" she asked innocently. "I'd be worried if I couldn't," she added. "Distract you."

"I don't think you'll ever have to worry about that," he muttered.

He made a bold effort to ignore her, but from the beginning he felt himself losing the battle. He forced himself to focus on the radiator hose.

"Do you know how you look leaning over that car?" he heard. "How am I supposed to resist _that_?"

"_That_ gets you going?"

He could feel her shoulders lift and then drop as she shrugged. "I can't help it."

"H'm," was his only comment as he filed the information away for future reference and tried to remember what he had been doing. Yeah. Radiator hose.

"It's been too long," he heard next.

He agreed with her there. So did his starving body.

He tried to re-focus, but the little vixen leaned more fully against him while her arms tightened around his waist. What little focus he had managed to scrape up flew right out the garage door.

Admitting defeat, he turned carefully around. Forcing sternness, he looked down at her while she idly explored the exposed muscles of his chest and toyed with the leather edges of his vest.

She glanced coyly up at him from beneath her lashes. "Maybe you're tired of me already?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"I am," she admitted, smiling faintly. "The truth is that _I_ want _you_, but you're really good at playing hard to get."

A dark fire smoldered in his eyes. Hard. She had that right.

He made one last attempt at gaining some semblance of control. This could quickly get out of hand. "You gotta know, Beth, now's not the right time for this."

"This isn't the right time to convince me that you still want me?"

"Oh, I can convince you," he said in a low, husky voice. "Don't ever doubt that."

Her body moved closer and fitted intimately to his. He groaned and she felt the sound move through her fingertips where they lay against his chest. She felt, too, the evidence of his desire for her.

He shook himself mentally. Someone had to stay sane around here. "But like I said," he went on. "Now's not the time. For one thing, you're in no shape for me to prove anything. _Two_, I have to check this vehicle over. _Three_, Lowell and Kyle could walk in at any moment. And _four_, there's bad guys out there and we're in the middle of a zombie apoc- "

She cut off his words by standing on her toes and kissing him lightly on the mouth. It was a sweet kiss, an innocent one, but it put him nearly over the edge.

"I think you like playing with fire," he drawled in a slow, sexy voice. "You get burned that way. You know that, don't you?"

"Daryl," she said softly, sure of herself. "It's always hot with you."

As his appreciative gaze watched her shapely derriere walk away, he called out, "You need to be thinking about one thing only. Getting better."

Left alone, he turned back to the car and stared at the engine like he'd never seen one before in his life.

* * *

_"I want to see if I can find some kind of tool box inside this house,"_ Daryl said as they walked by a smaller brick house with a screened porch.

Lowell held back and shook his head.

"I'll clear it out first," Daryl said as he turned back.

Lowell still didn't move. Daryl could tell by the sounds what was inside the house and he asked, "What's inside there? Besides walkers?"

Lowell hesitated, but he finally replied in a halting voice, "That's it. There's just- walkers."

"It's Lo's family," Kyle spoke up. "His mother and his grandmother are still in there. They've been in there since this all started."

"The tool box is on the back porch," Lowell said without lifting his head.

Daryl didn't say another word. He went inside the house by himself. Lowell didn't even move. Kyle stayed outside, too, with Beth.

"They're quiet now," Daryl said when he came back outside. "I didn't want to ask you so you wouldn't have to make the decision. I covered them with a blanket."

Lowell nodded and swallowed hard. It was the one thing he hadn't been able to do by himself. He had agonized over what to do for a long time, and now, finally, his loved ones were at peace.

Daryl had found the set of tools where Lowell had said they would be and they were finally ready. They had two working vehicles with plenty of gas. They had food and they had weapons, advantages Daryl and Beth had often gone without. Daryl was going to use those advantages to try and keep everyone alive.

As for Beth, she believed in him. When he had thought that he had lost her forever, the one thing that he had decided, hard as it had been, was that he was going to live up to the good that she had seen in him and keep that alive. That decision had been his way of honoring her memory. He would do his damnedest to live up to it now. He had been given a second chance. He could not lose her again.

Beth was alive. He could scale a mountain if she asked him to.


	20. Chapter 20

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 5_**

* * *

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Lowell asked.

"This is it," Daryl answered him.

Lowell studied Daryl's face for a moment before he said, "It looks deserted."

Daryl didn't comment. He merely nodded as he stared up at the corrugated, rust-colored wall before them. He had run across enough abandoned places. Places that people had thought were safe. Places that had been overrun, both by the living and the undead. Sometimes _looking_ deserted could be a smart defense.

He motioned with his hand. "This road leads right through that wall," he said. "Vehicles have been going in and out."

And not so long ago, he added to himself. Some of them had been big, heavy vehicles.

The walls were high and seemingly unscalable. Unless you looked closely. Then you saw the weaknesses. There were no windows. You couldn't see in, but you couldn't see out, either. There was a single tower but it was a ways off. There was no one manning the wall or the tower as far as he could see. That in itself was strange. Even stranger still, there had been no sounds to challenge their approach. No shouts. No warnings. No gun shots. And definitely no welcomes.

But the sound of their arrival did alert something else. Walkers. They appeared like they always did. Out of nowhere. From the corner of his eye, Daryl saw Beth lean over and draw the knife from her boot.

They had already gotten out of the vehicles. Now they stood trapped there between the unmovable iron wall and the moving undead. Fighting with their backs against a wall like this was never a good option, but he'd learned a long time ago that you couldn't always choose your options.

Daryl shoved Beth behind him. Lowell and Kyle had assured him that they could shoot. He prayed that it wasn't just empty boasting on their part, because they were outnumbered. Badly.

_What the hell? _

He had to look twice to be sure of what he was seeing. The walkers didn't just seem to be more feral and more focused. Some of them were on all fours, moving along the ground with a speed that astonished him. He had never seen anything like that and he mentally tried to adjust to the new threat.

They backed up till they were against the wall, with Daryl desperately wondering if they could even make it back to the vehicles. They weren't that far, but they might as well be parked in China for all that it mattered because the walkers were closing in quickly. Before he could fully think things through, salvation came swiftly and without warning. The wall rolled open like the parting of the Red Sea. An iron gate slid open next.

"Get inside," he heard someone shout.

It was Rick. He wasn't alone. Guns were firing and the walkers were dropping.

Soon they were standing, incredibly, behind a barrier which no walker could cross unless they had wings. Equally incredulous were the looks on the faces of the people who had come forward to meet them. Everyone, it seemed, was at a loss for words. Maggie was there and she gave a little cry and rushed forward as she broke into tears. Maybe not only because of the happy and unexpected reunion, but also because she must have realized that she had buried her sister alive. Something like that was bound to shake anyone.

* * *

Daryl had left the window open. He always felt better that way. Less confined. Maybe he could hear better. Maybe it helped him be more alert. Beth was beside him in the big, king-sized bed, sleeping peacefully. He was grateful for that. She needed to be resting as much as possible. How long had it been since they'd slept in an actual bed with warm blankets and clean sheets? Too long.

He thought back over the events of the day, particularly everyone's reaction at seeing Beth alive and well. Or as well as could be expected. He recalled the looks of shock and stunned disbelief, and the guilt and remorse that quickly followed. And how, one by one, their horror registered when they realized what they had done to her. It gave him a kind of grim satisfaction. They_ should_ suffer for putting her in the ground when she had still been alive. They _should_ regret keeping him from her.

She sighed softly in her sleep. The air coming through the open window was cold so he carefully pulled the blanket up over her bare shoulder. He still wasn't sure about the safety of this place. There was something not quite right here although he couldn't put his finger on it. But he would learn its secrets. Assess its dangers. There was one thing he would not do, however. He would not let his guard down.

He not only wanted to keep Beth safe. He felt responsible for Lowell and Kyle, too. He didn't want them to regret coming here. He didn't want to be responsible for that or, worse, he didn't want to have their deaths on his hands. Since the place had five bedrooms, they had all agreed to share this house together. They felt safer that way. Splitting up among strangers before you knew what you were up against was always a bad idea. They had made mistakes in the past. Hopefully, he had learned from those mistakes.

He looked towards the window. A thick smear of red stained the early horizon, the first harbinger of daylight. It was a still morning, gone cold again. Even the birds were silent. Last night he had been exhausted, but tonight, and in the future, he would use the darkness to hide as he uncovered Alexandria's secrets no matter how deeply they tried to bury them.

In ancient times men had built castle walls to keep themselves safe and to protect what they had, and this was no different. Men still fought. Wars were still waged. He knew that the history of mankind was often written in blood and he wondered if castle dwellers of the past had felt the same as he felt now as they manned towers watching for enemies. Were they fear driven? Were they suspicious of everyone and everything? Did they feel confined and isolated within their barricades until the fortifications themselves became a prison?

One thing he did know. Humans had always been ruthless and diabolically inventive when it came to mutual destruction. He expected no less now.

Beth stirred and stretched leisurely like a contented cat beside him.

"I had good dreams last night," she murmured as he slid down under the sheets beside her.

"Did you."

"Mm-hm. Of gardens and quiet dinners and sun-dried sheets. We can still re-capture those things, can't we?" she asked wistfully. She touched his beard-roughened cheek. "Say this is different. Tell me this is going to be better."

He nodded, though he couldn't truthfully tell her yet that things would be better.

"I know you're afraid," she said softly. "I see it in your eyes sometimes. You're afraid I'll leave you alone again. But we shouldn't be afraid to dream. Or to go ahead. Or to hope."

She was always like this. Somehow she found a bright side in everything.

"We survived the outside world," she went on. "We should be thankful for that. And for what we have together."

She laid her hand on his bare chest. "Every morning when I open my eyes I want to see you smile in that way you have and remind me of what we share together. I want that to be the first thing I see."

"That's all you want?"

After a pause, she smiled up at him. "Maybe not all. That shower yesterday was really nice. So nice, I thought I might take another one."

She was right. The shower had been more than nice. It had been downright earth-shattering because they had taken it together.

"Maybe you'd better remind me of how nice it was, because I forget . . . "

His voice trailed off as she started reminding him all over again.

* * *

Maggie would do anything to keep from going back out into the desperate and brutal existence they had come from. Did she feel remorse over her sister's untimely burial? There was no denying it had been horrific and for a while she had agonized over it. But this world did not allow for long goodbyes or elaborate funerals. Or lingering regrets. So she concentrated instead on being grateful that Beth was alive.

It didn't take her long to go back to keeping a wall around her emotions, just like the walls that surrounded them now. It kept her at an emotional distance. From Glenn. Even from her sister. But it was the only way she could go forward. It was the only way she could find the strength and the courage to face each day.

She had overheard every word Gabriel had said to Deanna. She might have gone to Deanna and explained how Gabriel had selfishly sacrificed his entire congregation for his own pathetic life. And that he was trying to sacrifice them all now for some reason. But something kept her from doing that. Maybe because she would have to do too much explaining and she did not want to open herself up like that. There were too many ghosts in her own past, things she did not want to have to re-face. Like the unavoidable fact of death that surrounded them in all its varied forms.

But there was one irrefutable fact that had lodged itself in her brain. When you faced death every single day, of course it became a solution at times. So she went to seek out Rick.

* * *

Rick paced like a caged animal. He had developed a strong aversion to being penned in, conditioned, no doubt, by tragic events of the past that had taught him that walls and fences

could be deadly. So he was always leery of such things. He had no delusions. This place was not all that it seemed.

It was not in him to trust anymore. Trust, he felt, had gotten too many people killed. And just like his trust, he had discarded his faith long ago. Yet, ironically, he continued to shake his fist and blame some unseen presence for all that he had lost in the world, including his own naïveté. It had taken him a long time to suppress his old frailties. And his emotions. Not to mention the foolish morals he had clung to so religiously in the past. Now he welcomed his darker side, perhaps a little too well.

He had convinced himself that he had to be the stronger, more lethal hunter. Their very survival depended on that. There could be no human weakness to get in the way of the group's survival. As time went on, he relied more completely on his deeper animal instincts. He thought, acted and reacted like a predator till he had adopted the same creed of ruthlessness for which he had once banished Carol from the group. He, too, had crossed too many lines. He couldn't go back.

And so, with cold-blooded cunning, he prowled the deserted streets like a lion stalking its next meal with only one thought in his mind, that all of Alexandria should be his for the taking.

* * *

For civilization to flourish here, they had to weed out the predators. The balance of power could tip so easily, so quickly. Deanna knew that. She had learned that lesson through hard-bitten experience. It was true that in some aspects they were not hardened enough, though in some ways they had already proven that they could be just as deadly and cold blooded. For now, at least, they would tread carefully.

Had she let wolves in among the sheep? There was always that possibility. She knew she had done so in the past and they had paid dearly for her mistakes. They were still paying.

She was still thinking over her visit earlier with Gabriel. He was supposed to have been a light. More precisely, his words were supposed to have been that light. But he, too, had shown that he was a wolf. He skulked about in darkness and secrecy, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. It was not so much what he had one in the past, but that he was still more than willing to sacrifice others.

But then, she thought wearily, it was best to know that early on. Every detail she could gather told her more about what she was up against. Every detail mattered when you were a general, when you made life and death decisions on a daily basis and you understood the true nature of the war.

Trust had always been a gamble, but in this world, particularly, trust could prove to be fatal. You had to be smart. And while it was true that sometimes she was forced to operate in secrecy, herself, it was not the way she wanted it to be. It's not what she would have chosen.

But that was why on the night of the party they had secretly filmed everything so that they could observe the new group members in a different, more natural setting. When they thought they weren't being watched. So she knew that Rick was capable of taking something that wasn't his to take.

She understood that they were walking a fine line here. She had known from the beginning that these people could be dangerous. But no one knew better than she did that they had no choice. She knew very well what could happen when the walls were breached, knew that the greatest threat could sometimes come from the inside.

She sighed as she stared out at the darkness. As in the past, she would not falter in making the hard decisions. Rick reminded her of a lion, one that could attack at a moment's notice. She understood very well what the outside world had done to him. But she had one advantage. She was still able to maintain a veneer of civilization, because she knew that looks could be deceptive. So, if she was lucky, Rick didn't know that she had learned a lot, too. He didn't know that she could be hard as nails, and just as lethal as he could be when it came to survival of her group.

* * *

Rick listened with an intensity that made him seem hawk-like. He had swooped in, devouring every word she said.

"He's a threat, Rick," Maggie told him. "Threats have to be eliminated."

"Does she know that you know?" Rick asked.

Maggie shook her head. "I stayed hidden."

Rick nodded. That could work to their advantage. "So he never told her exactly what happened- in the church?"

Maggie shook her head again. "No."

"But she has to be wondering," Rick said half to himself. "And he'll probably eventually get around to telling her."

"We saved his life," Carol spoke up. "And this is how he repays us."

Rick looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he asked Maggie, "You've gotten close to these people. What do you think?"

Maggie hesitated a moment before she spoke. "I think they may be hiding something dark."

Rick nodded slowly. Their instincts had been honed sharply out there where everything was in survival overdrive at all times. "These people won't understand that we did what was necessary."

Maggie agreed with him. "No, they won't." She sighed and added, "He's not one of us. He never was."

"He has no right to judge us," Carol said. "He didn't just make a mistake by locking those church doors. It was a decision. He's not really sorry for what he did. He'll do the same to us. If we let him."

The three of them were silent for a while as they thought it all over.

"We know what has to be done," Rick finally said, spearing each of them with a look.

They all knew that he was talking about murder, but no one in that room thought that it _wasn't_ necessary. Even in the past, murderers had to be stopped. It was, after all, a matter of survival.

"We don't have any choice," Carol said quietly, with no emotion showing in her voice or in her eyes.

"Not everyone is going to see it the same way," Maggie said.

"Not everyone has to know," Rick told her in a low voice.

Maggie nodded, justifying. "He could jeopardize everything. They could tell us to leave."

A light came into Rick's eyes that chilled even Maggie. "We're not leaving," he said.

* * *

"What do you really think about this place?" Rick asked.

Daryl gave his opinion. "I don't trust these people."

"Any reason?"

"Just small things for now. Of course if they have something to hide, they're going to try and keep it from us. But they probably don't trust us, either."

"Probably not," Rick agreed.

"They're sheep," Carol said.

"Sheep can be easily led," Abraham commented.

"To slaughter?" Carol had developed, along with her hard shell, a more blood-thirsty way of looking at things.

Glenn didn't have anything to say, but he was watching everyone attentively.

Rick looked around at the group. "You don't think they've let us in here without some kind of plan if things go wrong? They've given us separate houses to break us up. We're weaker that way. Together they know we're stronger."

"They've already given you all different jobs," Daryl said. "That keeps us separated, too. They could pick us off more easily, if they decide to do that, if we're scattered."

Rick nodded. "They may be sheep. But they're smart sheep. They've found ways to survive this long. You think someone hasn't already tried to take what they have? Hell, their lights should be visible for miles around."

"I agree," Carol said. "They have to be hiding something if they've survived this long."

She was shifting, her instincts adjusting to a new kind of threat. They were all doing that.

"They're luring us in with whatever bait they think will work," Rick went on with a slight thrust of his chin. "It's different for each person. That's why they study us so much."

To Daryl, Rick said, "See what you can learn. Right now they're acting like they want us to be part of them, but that could change without warning. They've given us free rein of this place. That should give us a temporary advantage. And you'll figure out pretty quick if someone is watching you."

Daryl nodded and made a soft sound of agreement in his throat.

"Just like out there, we can't let our guard down," Rick told them all. "It was their choice to let us in, and they have to take the consequences of their decisions," Rick said ominously.

As for Gabriel, they were at war and he was a traitor who had betrayed them to the other side. There was only one end for a traitor. In Rick's opinion, Gabriel wasn't the only one who had to die, and once the killing started, he didn't know where it was going to stop. But he kept that information to himself.

Daryl reported back to Rick right before sunset. "I think they are watching us in our houses."

They were standing in the street. Rick smiled in unconcern, just in case they were being watched.

"Why's that?" Rick asked, hiding his alarm.

"Lowell had said something to Beth about wanting to eat an entire apple pie by himself. That woman who plans the meals mentioned apple pie for dessert when she came to our door this morning."

"Did she realize her mistake?" Rick wanted to know.

"I think she mostly talks without thinking. I pretended not to even hear her."

If that wasn't enough, Daryl had even more disturbing news. "Some of the letters you see around? I saw the same signs on the box cars at Terminus."

It took everything in Rick not to react to that.

Daryl had one more concern. "They should be back by now," he said.

"Yeah," Rick agreed. "They should."


	21. Chapter 21

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 6_**

* * *

_For man is much more than mere flesh and blood. His spirit is indomitable when he lifts his face to see through the murky veil of shadows to the greater things, to the truth . . ._

Lowell closed the book and ran his fingers lightly over the embossed title: _Dark of Peace_. Ironically, it was a book about a threatened world, and the undead and the possible extinction of mankind. But it was about hope, too. How could those things be so closely entwined in a single book?

He yawned and rubbed his eyes. He was tired but sleep still eluded him. It had been his habit to read when he could not sleep and he had read every book in their secret library. He knew more about bio-weapons and stealth viruses and conspiracy theories than he ever wanted to know. Of course he didn't know what had caused this plague, maybe nobody knew, but he had his own theories. Luckily, there were plenty of books _here_ to choose from to fill his sleepless nights.

_Dark of Peace_ was another kind of apocalyptic book, but there was one book that guided him more than any other. His mother had always told him to seek its wisdom. If a man's very existence hinged upon his weaknesses and his failings, she had explained to him, then everyone would be doomed. But there was something beyond that, she'd taught him. There was something much deeper. There was salvation of a different kind.

A shiver racked his body. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and pushed the window down until it was almost closed. The rain made jewels against the glass while the rain-laden wind breathed against him and stirred memories that he kept locked away deep inside him.

It was the newness of this place that probably accounted for his sleeplessness. It was all that they had gone through to get here. He was so far from home. Farther than he had ever been on his own. The strangeness of the new bedroom and the far away thunder of the dying storm added to his sense of loneliness. Memories flooded him. From his earliest recollections to his very last ones. It was as if he had left a part of himself behind, perhaps the biggest part, and he could not help but mourn the loss.

He was aware of problems here at Alexandria. Already there had been the tragedy of Deanna losing her son. It threw a shadow over everything. It was a loss that everyone felt. He and Kyle had been alone and on their own for a long time. Surviving had meant staying together, but staying invisible. This place was anything but invisible, so it was a big adjustment for them. But whatever lay ahead, he felt like he needed to have an alternate plan. He did not want to rely on other people for their survival. Unfortunately, that's just what it had come down to. Other people's behaviors were going to affect _their_ futures, too.

He understood that sometimes you had to eliminate threats because threats could become deadly in this world. But the danger wasn't always where you expected it to come from. Rick in particular seemed unstable. He had already proven to be too volatile, too violent, too impulsive in _his_ behavior. Those were not good qualities in a leader. The fight between Rick and Pete had reminded him of two male animals fighting mindlessly over the possession of a female. But they were humans, not animals.

Deanna was a different kind of leader. Delegating responsibilities, keeping people positively occupied, giving them reasons to go on, those were smart moves on her part. Rick on the other hand . . . Well, Rick seemed half unhinged and aggressively confrontational, as well as being a slave to his deepest, most violent urges.

Lowell's instincts were warning him that something bad was coming and that he needed to be prepared for whatever it might be. "Deliver us from evil," he whispered because he believed that evil was still the greatest enemy they faced.

He stared off into the distant darkness. He would never go back home, he knew. Something seemed to rise up from deep inside him despite his efforts to keep it tamped down. Remembering the woman who had been both a mother and a father to him since his birth, remembering his grandmother, too, and realizing he would never see them again, on this most lonely of nights, his shoulders shook and silently the tears began to fall.

* * *

_In the distance, lightning still pulsed with a fury that crackled_ angrily in the blackness beyond the high metal walls. Thunder muttered a low warning. It was a far away, restless sound that matched his own sleepless agitation. One storm was ending. Another was building. But this one was inside of him. There was no peace for him. No contentment. But there were regrets. There was remorse. And rage. Which was far easier to feel than the other emotions. But that rage was like a poison in his veins. It seemed to probe at his very soul. Once, he would have known that he had to exorcise those things or writhe in the torment of a living hell that could consume him. Once, he would have realized that he was a victim, burdened by the weight of a responsibility far too heavy for him to carry. For he had crossed the spectrum until he stood at an opposing ledge, morphing from peace keeper to war-monging barbarian in an unfairly short period of time.

He had crossed too many lines to go back. So many that the delineations had blurred beyond his ability to make rational, unbiased judgments. He had steeped himself in madness in the past and then come back again, with the uncompromising conviction that this was not a world for dialogues or negotiations. Conciliations and compromises wouldn't work. Those things had failed miserably. Only fools still believed, while he himself remained unaware that he had lost far more than he could ever have imagined.

He still thought logically, but his thought processes were driven more by primal, animalistic urges and instincts. The constant surges of adrenaline, perhaps, had changed circuits in his brain. Certainly thinking processes changed in extreme environments and under extreme conditions. PTSD? Everyone in the group probably all had it to some degree.

But where could the healing begin, if there ever could be any healing? Here at Alexandria? Or would they have to adjust to a whole new set of stresses? Would they all be able to do that successfully without breaking under the strain?

As if his trust hadn't been dangerously shaken already, there was some tie to Terminus here. That was enough for him. That had been the final, rending straw.

It was time to ask Deanna about those W's carved into the walker's foreheads and to demand that she give him answers. The letters reminded him of gang graffiti. Maybe it was a sign of ownership or possession. Of course he could not help reacting to that on a primitive level. If it had anything to do with the group that called themselves wolves, then they were leaving very prominent, very clear messages behind. Perhaps it was a territorial claim. Or maybe it was a threat, a reminder or some other kind of taunting.

Gangs formed because there was strength in numbers. Maybe this was no different than a group marking their victims, or marking their own members, or maybe both.

His thoughts shifted rapidly as they were wont to do, another thing that had become necessary for survival. He accepted that Gabriel wasn't the only one who had to die. Pete had to die, too, and once the killing started, he didn't know where it was going to stop.

First Gabriel. Then Pete. Then possibly Deanna. She had plans for him. Of course she did. She wouldn't stand idly by while he handed out the verdicts he knew she wouldn't, or couldn't, make.

Deep inside he knew he was lusting after another man's wife. And deep inside, on some level, he wrestled with that. He was able to recognize, if only to himself, that more than any sense of justice, covetousness was driving him. But_ she_ also would benefit. She obviously couldn't make the right decision for herself. He would have to make it for her. And some day she would thank him for it.

It had been a long time, and his internal urges and frustrations were screaming for another kind of physical release. Through sex. He knew that he could relieve some of his tension in that way.

Somewhere in the back of his mind was a nagging grain of knowledge that persisted despite his efforts to cast it out. Shane had done the same thing. Lusted after another man's wife. And Rick had decided that Shane had to die.

Just like Cain, Rick had slain the man closest to him and it sometimes seemed that he, too, bore his own mark for all the world to see. Had he not been banished and lost everything? Had he not cried out that his punishment was too great for him to bear?

He stood in the yard with his shirt unbuttoned and the wind pressing against him and baring his chest. His flesh was white in the restless, intermittent flashes of lightning. The dying storm was just an illusion, he knew. It wasn't really ending. It was just raging somewhere else. Furious. Violent. Powerful. And just like the jagged forks of lightning that rent the very heavens, there were searing cracks along the seams of his own psyche.

He shuddered when the full impact of his emotions rippled to the surface, for the ones he let rule him were the darker passions, the destructive ones. A scoffing, bitter laugh came out as half snarl, half growl when he realized that he had broken every single commandment. Or was about to. But he had no regrets about any of them.

He glared up at the seething heavens, at the dark cloud masses lit by the fitful talons of lightning. He threw his head back in exultant defiance, mentally shook his fist. And he cursed. Profanely. Passionately. Blasphemously.

After the last audible syllable left his lips, a wave of engulfing madness seemed to infuse him, like ink indelibly staining the ragged remnants of his sanity. The same madness that had steadily been eating away at his soul. He stood poised on the brink of something that could send him plummeting into the darkness forever, a chasm from which he would not be able to return. But although he recognized it, even feared it, he did not fight it. He let it overtake him.

His laughter was almost demonic. It rang into the void of blackness that surrounded him, echoing like a death knell from the walls of the place he now called home, the same place where his children slept. So virulent were his passions that he gave himself over to them completely, so strong were they that he trembled and felt a surge of energy like nothing he had ever felt before as the darkness swallowed him whole, injecting his bloodstream like a dark and addictive narcotic. He leaned forward, his muscles straining, his nerves singing as he panted like a rabid dog. He felt powerful, invincible.

He bowed his head. When he raised it again, the blackness of hell was reflected in the depths of his eyes. Like a beast let loose from a cage and ravenous for prey, he stalked into the night.

* * *

_ It was hard to make objective decisions when she _was grieving so deeply for her son. A part of her wanted to lash out at the people who might have been responsible. A part of her knew there had been problems already. Before they even came. But that didn't make things any easier. That didn't change things.

As _if_ a casserole could replace her son, or make her feel better. How woefully and pathetically inadequate.

While she struggled to find a way to cope, the storm was reminding Deanna. Of other storms in a far past when she had held and comforted a small child, holding him close and quieting his fears. Rocking him until he was able to sleep again.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the room. She hardly recognized the woman who stared back at her. Deep losses changed you. Right now she was raw from the pain of losing her son. This was too hard to bear, too hard . . .

* * *

_When every day of your life was lived in a war zone,_ you learned to be battle-hardened. But there was always the danger of becoming as callous and as brutal as your enemy. There was always the danger of losing little pieces of yourself until the enemy stole your life and buried it under a life sentence of obedience.

She had begun the day early, in darkness, awakened from an intense dream where she was trying to find her way through a dark woods. There were things she had hidden along the paths so that she could go back and get them some day. Those things had to be preserved carefully, disguised so they would be left for her without being taken and destroyed. She would return for them one day.

Then the dream shifted and she was waiting for something, some_one_. He never appeared even though he had something terribly important to do. Maybe he needed to wake the sleeping princess. Maybe purest love was the key ingredient.

Carol closed her eyes and hugged herself against the cold, looked briefly around the dark room for her sweater. She had cried unshed, distant tears in that dream. She still felt the desperation of unfelt need. She was still struggling with so many uncomfortable feelings that had come bubbling unbidden to the surface - disappointment, frustration, disbelief even. Suppressed anger was the most unstable of them, perhaps. But all of them were palpably toxic. She knew none of this is doing her any good, but was the dream telling her the truth? That she was already so lost inside that-

She sighed as she made her way outside and leaned against one of the porch posts, still feeling the pull of the dream, realizing all too well its deeper meaning. Instead of love, she had accepted a miserly imitation, and in this raw, unguarded moment, because of the dream, she felt the loss as if it were a very, very great loss, facing the real tragedy in a moment of brutal, naked truth. That she wasn't young any more. And the prince never came.

She was called back through the years to the period in her life when Ed had tried to define her by his own darkness. It had been a long, hard battle to win. Maybe an impossible one. He had worked hard at eroding her dignity, her security, her peace of mind and her ability to trust. Absolutely everything he could take from her, he did. He had spent the grueling years of their marriage digging himself into a cavernous hole of dirt, shoveling as fast as he could and raging about how dark it was down there. And while he welcomed the demons inside him, she also had the extra burden of standing as a shield between her child and a madman. Eventually, the question had ceased to be: Will I let him do this? It had changed to: He did do this.

God, how had things gone so far? How had they gone on so long? It was senseless to have expected so little for herself. It was a sinful waste of all those years.

And while she knew that Ed had embraced pure evil, and that he had held and nurtured it in a soul fully capable of letting it loose, she also knew now that no one could suddenly develop such a black and hateful soul. It had festered from the beginning of his existence, long before he had even met her.

The thought of all those lost years sickened her. When she looked back, how sad and pathetic it all seemed. How pointless. She had lived through a veritable war. And who had won? No one. They had all lost.

Once she had thought that people could not be so evil, so devious, so destructive, so relentless. But she had been wrong. They could. While she did her best to ignore him, he would keep coming at her until he found a weak spot. Why had it taken so long for her to accept that things could never be right or fair or honest between them, that nothing would ever change? And when had she begun to believe that she was an object not worthy of dignity or peace, devoid of feelings and emotions, devoid of rights or any humanness? Devoid of soul?

Long before Ed? Before her own parent's failed marriage had left its own scars? Back when she was innocent, before the unfolding of knowledge and evil had hardened her heart?

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and realized how she had come to hate herself for needing something Ed could not give. She saw the truth of abuse very clearly now and she couldn't pretend that she didn't. Abusers used different disguises and different approaches. They came in varied forms. But their purpose remained the same. They were driven by an obsession, a blindness, a destructive need to possess, to have a victim.

She stared at the house down the street. She knew very well what was going on behind those closed doors. It felt like she, herself, was caught in the trap of abuse again. She might have told herself they only had to avoid the mines. But there was no avoiding, she knew. There were more mines than safe places to step.

Maybe the worst thing was that there was another child involved. Homes could become cages and she knew all about cages. She had lived behind bars for most of her life.

She swept Alexandria in a glance. This whole place was like a voluntary zoo where the animals could go back in their cages to eat and to feel safe from other predators. She knew that they were being observed and studied like some new and different, potentially dangerous, species of animal.

She also knew that what the group needed most was to know that they could go outside if they wanted to. They needed to _feel_ free. It was the only thing that made this place tolerable. Except- Except for what went on in the shadows. That was something that couldn't be overlooked. She already knew that had to change. If that meant taking over the zoo, then she was fully prepared to do whatever it took.

She watched Rick moving silently through the misty darkness. She had not changed her own circumstances. She had let it go on far too long. But she could change this. She had the strength now. If Rick did not decide to make things right, she would do so herself.

* * *

_Glenn shoved the strands of dark hair away from his face_ and stared at the lightning in the distance. The rain had ended and the storm had moved off, but every now and then, when the wind freshened, it blew a fine mist of rain against him. He was bare chested. His feet were bare, too, as he stood on the porch surrounded by the steady dripping of rain from the leaves and the eaves of the house. The early frogs in the pond filled the night with a symphony of shrill peeping. The insects, too, filled the night with unearthly noises.

Once, long ago, this would have been a peaceful night at the end of a peaceful day.

But another fight with Maggie had disrupted all that. He sighed and wrapped his hands around the porch railing. She should be happy here. He had hoped that she would be. This was what she had wanted. But she was anything but happy. Her bitterness seemed to grow, along with her anger, until they were fighting day and night. And the fights had become more vicious, more hurtful.

He understood that she had lost a great deal. Maybe she hadn't had time to properly mourn her losses, but there was nothing he could do to change any of it. God knows, he had tried. All they could do was to just pick up the pieces and go on the best they could and hope that this place would prove to be a better choice than their attempts to find safety in the past.

He had already faced the sobering realization that he could not make Maggie happy. She was as dissatisfied with him as she was with anything. Maybe moreso. Maybe he should have expected this. Thinking back, she had been angry and resentful from the first moment he had met her. Maybe things had moved too fast for them. Maybe they had both been desperate to build sand castles out of a world that had been crumbling down around them. It was possible that she had been looking for a replacement for the things she had lost.

Was there even such a thing as a normal relationship in this current insane world? He didn't know. He only knew that the old rules didn't apply anymore. And who could be expected to know what the new ones were?

He was coming to accept that Maggie's life had meaning _here. Now. Beyond him._ Whether that would make her happy or not, he didn't know.

He heard a slight noise, the whisper of a bare foot on a floorboard. He looked back over his shoulder to see her standing in the doorway. It startled him because she hadn't said a word to let him know she was there.

For the briefest of moments he saw something in her eyes that took him aback. He could not completely define it. Was it hatred? If so, was it directed at him?

Her intense, fixed gaze finally slid away from him. "I thought you should know," she began without looking at him. And then she told him about Gabriel. She didn't come right out and tell him about their decision. But she hinted at it.

"This is not who we are," he said, sickened inside at the revelation. He was so worn out with the fighting.

"We don't have a choice," she said with the same trace of bitterness in her voice that he had heard many times before.

"We always have a choice."

"This choice has been _forced_ on us."

"What choice is that?" he asked her. "To be like the worst of the evils that are out there?"

"If that's what surviving means," she answered him flatly, her voice surprisingly emotionless. And then she went on almost sullenly. "We've crossed too many lines. We can't go back."

"So what exactly are you planning to do?" He wasn't sure he even wanted to know details, but he couldn't hide from them.

"Put him outside, just like he did to his church people. Let him be the one on the outside this time."

"It isn't right."

"It _is _right," she said without hesitation.

They both knew Gabriel didn't have a chance of surviving out there on his own.

"Do you think there are _any_ of us who haven't been scared enough to make the wrong choices? Every one of us has regrets, things we can't change. Things we have to live with."

He laid his hand against his bare chest. "But I don't want to have to live with one more regret. I don't want to have one more thing on my conscience." He looked at her more closely. "Who else knows about this?"

She shrugged, evading an answer.

"We can't come in here," he said while he made a sweeping gesture with his hand to indicate the town. "Beating people up. Killing people. Where will it end?"

"These people don't know- "

"These people have survived for a long time," he cut her off. "And from what I can see, a hell of a lot better than we've been surviving. Deep down you know that's true."

"They were lucky."

"There was more than luck involved." He stared more closely at her. "You saw the look on Rick's face when he was hitting Pete. Yet you're still willing to trust him blindly. Rick is the one who told you that you had to give Beth a quick burial. If that hasn't shaken your faith in him and his ability to make decisions- "

"We all shared that mistake."

_Mistake?_ Was that what she was calling it?

"We can't let ourselves be blindly led by someone who is constantly giving in to their worst, most violent impulses. Dale taught me that."

"The world is not the way we want it to be," Maggie informed him. "Why do you expect things to be the same as they used to be?"

"Maggie, we can't- "

She turned on him then, all her fury and anger coming naked to the surface. "Don't tell me what I can do. I thought I could trust you with this. If you're too weak to accept what has to be done, then keep quiet and let us take care of it."

How, he wondered, could they have lost so much? The walkers wanted to take his life, but this was taking his heart.

* * *

_"Beth, no."_

She had planted herself in his path. Short of picking her up and moving her, Daryl didn't know how to get around her.

"You're not up to this," he told her.

"You'll be with me," she said without taking her eyes off his face.

Blind trust in him. She clung to it so stubbornly.

"You said you wouldn't be gone long," she reminded him. "That you wouldn't be in any danger."

Yeah, he had said that. But there was always danger.

Because he knew how stubborn she could be, because he never could say no to her, he gave in to her, knowing damn well it was the wrong decision to make.

He hoisted up his bow and sighed. "Come on then."

"What are you looking for exactly?" she asked him after they had headed out together and the walls of Alexandria disappeared behind them.

"Just checking things out," he replied.

"You think there's something out here that we should know about?"

"There's always something," he breathed, tilting his head to look down at a dead walker. Another one with a W carved into the forehead. "We need to know what we're up against."

There _was_ something else out here. A new kind of walker that walked on all fours and didn't act the way it was supposed to act. He needed some answers. They hadn't talked about it, but he knew Beth was wondering what the W's meant, too.

"I'm worried about Rick," he heard her say. She sounded a little out of breath so he slowed his pace. "About what he's becoming."

Daryl was worried about that, too.

"It's like he's stuck in some kind of survival overdrive. He's too ruthless. Too brutal. Too eager to kill. I was thinking," she went on thoughtfully. "That he goes about killing the same way that a walker does. Savagely."

Daryl agreed, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

"What's wrong with Rick?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"But you think something _is _wrong?"

"I- "

He never finished. There were walkers, about a dozen of them, headed right for them. Where they came from he didn't know. They seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Get in the truck," Daryl said as he grabbed Beth's arm and steered her towards a vehicle parked about twenty feet away.

While Daryl breathed his gratitude at finding that both doors were unlocked, the rusted hinges creaked loudly. They got into the truck and slammed the doors at the same time. Walkers immediately surrounded the truck. Luckily, these walkers didn't look any different from the ones they were used to. They shuffled along slowly, clumsily. But they were definitely hungry for their next meal.

"What do we do now?" Beth asked.

Snarls and growls almost drowned her out. Soon they would draw attention to other walkers.

Daryl looked around. "We need to cover the windows. If they can't see us, they'll probably wander off after a while."

They looked around for something to put over the windows. But there was nothing. Not a stitch of material anywhere.

"I should never have gotten you into this situation," Daryl muttered, narrowing his gaze at the walker that was staring at him through his window.

"We've been in worse situations," Beth said. "Anyway, you tried to keep me from following you."

"I should have tried harder. I don't like taking chances with you."

He would do anything to protect her. Give up his own life without a second thought if it came to that. He loved her that much.

They were able to cover the front window with the floor mats, but it was not enough. Then Daryl said, "Take your clothes off."

She looked at him like he had lost his mind. "What?"

"We'll cover the rest of the windows with our clothes," he explained.

It was the only plan that might work. Soon they were both stark naked in the semi-gloom of the cab. The windows, at least, were completely covered.

Beth jumped every time a walker slammed into the glass. Daryl slid closer to her.

"You think this is going to work?" she asked nervously as she made an attempt to cover herself with her arms.

"I don't see why it won't," he tried to reassure her.

"I don't want to die while I'm naked," she whispered.

He shook his head. Like that made a difference.

"So what I said about Rick- Um- "

"I don't want to talk about Rick anymore."

She looked up at him suspiciously when one corner of his mouth drew back into a half grin.

"What?"

He looked down at her. "I was just thinking that this could be a good way to get a girl out of her clothes on a first date."

"If this is your best idea for doing that, you probably won't have too many second dates."

A walker scraped his nails along the glass. Beth cringed and scooted farther away from the door.

Daryl jerked his chin slightly towards the sound. "I was thinking about taking your mind off of that."

"You're not seriously thinking about- " Her eyes widened as he lifted her and pulled her onto his lap. "Oh. You _are_."

"Why not?" he breathed seductively. "We're alone and we've got nothing better to do. Listen. They're starting to go away already."

She looked doubtful, but the snarls and thumps were definitely diminishing. "You have protection?" she asked.

He nodded as he carefully reached into his vest pocket. "In this world, you learn to be prepared. At all times." His voice had lowered until it became a raspy, sexy drawl that sent shivers straight to her feminine core. And then some.

"Prepared?" she echoed, scoffing softly. "This is crazy, you know." She was still trying to hold him at an emotional, and physical, distance, but she was failing miserably.

"You've been known to get me a little crazy," he whispered as his hand slid around to the back of her neck. He gazed deeply into her eyes before he distracted her with a very slow, very sensuous kiss that took her to a whole new level of need.

"I don't want to die while I'm . . . naked," she repeated, trying to maintain some semblance of sanity. But she gasped when her nipples brushed his naked chest. It was sheer, exquisite sensation. "And definitely not while we're- You know. _Ohhh_ . . . " Her final protest died away, became a moan of unbridled pleasure as he drew her slowly down over his rigid, throbbing shaft. He understood perfectly well that she ached for more and he thrust deeper, filling her completely and causing her to breathe his name as if it were some divine invocation.

"You're not dying today," he murmured with his lips pressed against her ear, his breathing becoming ragged from his own need. "Unless it's from satisfaction."

Soon they were kissing like there was no tomorrow. A hundred, even a thousand, walkers could have come along, but they wouldn't have been aware of it.

Daryl knew her well. He loved her well and before long his hand was softly covering her mouth, reminding her of silence as he slowly drove her to the brink of a precipice that sent her into a freefall of mindless, blissful oblivion.


	22. Chapter 22

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 7_**

* * *

She knew.

She stood barefoot on the dew-drenched grass with her face tilted upward and her eyes closed. The sun had not yet risen over the wall, but its warmth permeated the early morning air. Beyond the wall, the highest tree tops bowed as if in homage to a sudden breeze. Tara could hear its whisper as it passed through the leaves. Within the confines of the wall where she stood, the air did not move. Inside, at least, it promised to be yet another hot, sultry day after nearly a week of unrelenting heat. Already, the sun's heat seemed to be radiating from the dark corrugated metal that towered over her. And already, the whirring chant of the cicadas was rising into the early stillness.

She was alone. There was no one nearby to read her thoughts or to wonder at the open vulnerability she had temporarily allowed to find expression on her face. A combination of confusion and innocence was reflected there as a shiver passed through her. She shivered not so much from the cool dampness beneath her bare feet as she did from the release of emotion long pent up. How, she wondered, had she come to this place? How had her heart betrayed her so badly?

She bowed her head and closed her eyes again. A woman might fight against it, but she always knows, deep inside, when she is in love. The moment comes when she surrenders completely to the truth. This was her moment.

She should feel different, she thought. She should feel changed. On the outside maybe that was true. On the inside, amazingly, she still felt like the same person she had always been. Even before the entire world had collapsed around her, she had felt lost, confused and alone. Even then she would not have considered allowing the world access to her inner self. Now it was even more important to keep her emotions hidden deep inside.

Just thinking about her feelings toward Glenn frightened her. And yet they thrilled her at the same time. They made her feel alive. Schoolgirl crushes were one thing, but this was different. This was unlike anything she had ever felt. Her innocence defined her love, so it was a deeply-intense longing, both achingly sweet and consuming.

They had never shared much beyond basic survival. Still, she thought about Glenn all the time. She couldn't help it. She imagined them together. She dreamt about him at night. Even knowing that he belonged to Maggie. He had been there for her from the beginning and she had vowed that she would be there for him, too. No matter what. He alone was responsible for her coming this far. He alone was responsible for her very life. He had not only taught her how to survive. He had given her a reason to survive.

She had memorized every detail about him. How he walked. How he smiled. She knew immediately when he was surprised, or angry, or frustrated. Knew how his hair gleamed in the morning sunlight and how the shadows touched his face in the evening. There was no detail that escaped her. She often recalled those times when she had pleased him. She had gone over in her mind a hundred times that look of shock and gratitude on his face when she had once saved _his_ life.

More than all of that, however, she knew that he had held onto his principles through everything, that he still refused to compromise them, that he would not even consider doing the wrong thing simply because it was the easiest thing to do. She admired him for that. He was brave. He was steadfast and loyal, and utterly unwavering in his convictions.

Some people were like sheep, blindly following where anyone would lead them. Glenn was different. There were few who questioned Rick, but Glenn stood up to him. He was not afraid to question Rick's decisions. That took courage because Rick could be volatile. He had proven to be violent and brutal, almost unhinged in his demand for authority. Just like the Governor had been. This zombie apocalypse had brought out the worst in some men. In others, it brought out the best. Glenn was one of the others.

He had demonstrated time and again that he was too honest to be false. With other people, but mostly with himself. He cared about other people, too. From the beginning he had asked a lot from her. But he was prepared to give a lot, too. His life if it came down to it. And while he had earned _her_ respect, Maggie seemed to hold him in contempt for those very same traits. Tara understood that Glenn's relationship with Maggie was, at times, a strain on him. Anyone could see that. But he bore it all with uncommon patience. She had heard them argue. She had seen Maggie treat him with undisguised disdain and outright hostility. Tara knew that_ she_ would always treat Glenn with respect because of who and what he was. Because of who he _stayed_.

She drew a deep breath and released it in a sigh. Her heart was an open thing at that moment. She could no longer hide from the truth. She was helplessly, hopelessly in love. Her heart had chosen this man, this time to fall in love. It was the wrong man. It was definitely the wrong time. But . . .

She bowed her head and buried her face in her hands, yielding fully to the awful truth while at the same time vowing that he would never know, not by word or by deed, how she felt about him.

* * *

"Someone who kills with as much relish as you do- " Gabriel began.

"Survives in this world," Rick finished flatly.

"You're planning something here, aren't you?"

Nonplussed, Rick answered Gabriel's question with one of his own. "And if I am?"

"It's something violent," Gabriel went on. "Something that benefits you. If you live by the sword- "

"Spare me your preaching," Rick interrupted, lifting his gaze momentarily to stare at the house behind Gabriel.

"Because you think you have no need of it?" Gabriel asked.

"Because it won't do either one of us any good at this point."

Gabriel looked up sharply. Rick's smile was feral, wolfish. He _knew_ then, instinctively, what Rick was planning to do.

"Is this how you choose to solve all your problems? Murder?"

There it was, out in the open and it hung heavily on the air between them.

"There is no such thing as murder anymore," Rick answered with no trace of emotion in his voice. He even shrugged one shoulder negligently.

"You really believe that?"

With his eyelids hooded, Rick nodded slowly. "I do believe it," he admitted. "And, yes, I have come to accept that death, _not_ murder, is often the only solution in this kind of world. I won't let myself be weak. I've seen where weakness leads."

"Have you thought that mercy, also, takes strength?" Gabriel asked.

"Mercy is a dangerous option. I know first-hand that it can be a deadly one."

"You've been leading this group into darkness. Somewhere inside you know that."

Rick let his breath out in a low, ugly laugh. He suddenly looked up, narrowing his gaze and fixing it on Gabriel. Just like a predator focusing in on its prey. "I'm wondering why you came out here all alone," he asked in a quietly-dangerous voice.

Gabriel was still trying to put the pieces together and have them make sense, not realizing that it could not always be done. "I could ask you the same thing," he said with a frown.

"I guess you could," Rick said without taking his eyes off of Gabriel's face. "Why don't you?"

"Why don't I what?"

"Why don't you ask?"

But Gabriel couldn't do that. For long moments he stood like a person who was at a loss for words.

"Did you find it?" Rick finally asked.

"Find what?"

"What you were looking for," Rick said, tilting his head slightly to one side. "You came out here looking for _something_."

Gabriel tried to keep his rapidly-shifting emotions under control, but he wasn't succeeding very well. When confronted with all that Rick stood for, he felt something rise inside that almost sickened him. He always did. It had started after the vicious incident in the church. From that moment, he had found it impossible to quietly accept Rick as a leader. His conscience would not allow it.

"Maybe you've been wondering what is in that house and you came to check it out?" Rick's gaze flickered briefly to the small structure behind Gabriel.

Gabriel did not answer. At the moment, Rick looked like a man who was keeping a secret, but Gabriel wasn't sure he wanted to know what that secret was. Especially when he saw the gleam in Rick's eyes.

Thunder growled ominously in the distance. The already-overcast sky grew darker by almost-perceptible degrees. The air grew noticeably heavier.

"Do you have something you would like to say to me?" Rick's question was almost too amiable.

There were plenty of things Gabriel would have liked to say to the man standing before him, but he wasn't used to confrontations with violent men. Especially when he already suspected Rick's intentions. Gabriel shook his head. "I have nothing to say."

"No? You don't even want to defend yourself?"

Rick was definitely a man who was looking for a fight. Gabriel wanted anything but.

"Would it do any good?" Gabriel asked.

With bold-faced honesty, Rick shook his head no.

"I'm not sure what all this- " Rick suddenly waved his hand and spread his fingers wide. "Has taught _you_. But _I_'ve learned one thing. When someone threatens my family, I have to eliminate the threat." Rick's gaze was unwavering. "No matter where it comes from."

"I'm not a threat to you." Gabriel's voice sounded surprisingly steady in the face of Rick's growing hostility.

Rick looked to the side. "That's where you're wrong," he suddenly spat out as he looked back and leaned forward, so tense now that the cords in his throat stood out. "Dead wrong. As I see it, you're one of the biggest threats right now."

Rick turned away as if in disgust, then immediately spun back around. "Some of those people you locked out of the church, they ended up running Terminus, didn't they?" Rick's voice tightened with his rising fury. "Didn't they?"

His question was answered not by Gabriel, but by a spattering of raindrops on the canopy of leaves above them.

"You see what you caused back there? I'm wondering if maybe some of them ended up _here, _too." Rick clenched his hands into tight fists as he waited for an answer, but Gabriel's guilty, pained expression was answer enough.

"Do you recognize any of the people at Alexandria?" Rick went on relentlessly. "Are you hiding something more from us?"

Rick had already decided that Gabriel would be the first. And somewhere deep inside Rick realized that he was looking forward to seeing the fear in the man's eyes right before he killed him. He deemed it justice in a world ruled by unbridled injustice and unspeakable brutality. So, without warning, he grabbed a fistful of Gabriel's shirt front and dragged him across the junk-littered yard, all the while gritting out his personal grievances.

Gabriel's choking sounds did not move him. His prayers were meaningless words. And his babbling pleas for his life stirred no pity within Rick. Sacrifices had to be made for justice to be served. That was the reality of this world. Rick had gone so far that now it was easy for him to guiltlessly justify any actions, even before he slit a man's throat or gutted him.

There was no going back. Not when he already had it all planned out. Out here was the perfect place. It was the only place. Let everyone wonder. Let everyone believe a walker had done it. No one would question that.

"You had a nice safe little job where you didn't have to get your hands dirty, or take any of the risks," Rick said behind clenched teeth, furious at the imbalance. "You hid behind that cross for a long time. But that's all ended now. We all have a price to pay."

Rick's contempt and his hatred were crossing the boundaries. So was his unleashed rage. He could have tied the man up and let the walkers do it, but he wanted to take care of this personally. Loose ends were untidy things that could come back to haunt you.

"Help . . . Help me."

Rick's lips curled into a sneer. "No one can hear you."

Gabriel's cowardice was just another irritation to Rick. To shut him up, Rick hit him and his head snapped back. He hit him again. And again. The blows were emotionless and cold at first, and then he began feeding on something deep inside himself.

Was this what it was like for the blond-haired woman tied to the tree in the woods? Rick wondered without knowing why that thought came into his mind at that moment. She must have pleaded for her life, too, before she died. But he didn't think of her as a human being anymore. What did it matter what had happened to her before she died? What did any of it matter? They were all dead one way or another.

Gabriel sagged down to his knees, trying ineffectually to avoid the blows to his already-battered face. His nose was broken. His lip was split. Blood stained his white shirt.

The storm was almost upon them. The sky was dark. Lightning crackled. Thunder crashed in a long, restless, rolling peal that shook the very foundation of the house. Another splattering of big raindrops hit the tin roof of the house.

Rick leaned forward until his face was only inches away from Gabriel's. "You thought only about yourself before," he spat. "You were willing to let other people die. Why should I think you won't do it again? Why wouldn't I believe you'd sacrifice us all to save yourself?"

Rick stared down at the cowering man. Unbelievably, he was still muttering what sounded like prayers.

"And if I nail you up to that wall?" Rick jerked his head in the direction of the front of the house. "Where do you think your prayers would get you then?"

Suddenly the rain came pouring straight down in a hard downpour. Water fell over the ledge of the roof, all but drowning out Gabriel's words, drenching him till his bloody shirt was plastered to his body.

"I'm . . . sorry," he sobbed.

Rick stared dispassionately at Gabriel's misshapen, swollen nose and split lip, washed clean now from the driving rain. "Naw. You're not sorry," Rick rasped. He looked up at the seething sky while rain rivulets ran down his own face. "There's your god, bringing this storm down on us. Just like everything else he's brought down on us."

Gabriel muttered something about shelter. He coughed and bloody spittle sprayed from his mouth.

Rick sneered as he leaned down and taunted Gabriel. "You gotta realize, you brought this all on yourself."

Gabriel whispered, " . . . in our darkest hour . . . forgive . . . "

Rick ignored him and started dragging him towards the door of the house. "You want to talk about darkness? First you need to see what hell on earth looks like. Come on inside before you even think about forgiveness. You're prayers, preacher, are about to turn into curses."


	23. Chapter 23

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 8_**

* * *

"You think this is a waste of time?" Glenn asked in the darkness.

After a few moments of silence, Eugene answered, "I don't know."

Daryl, Eugene and Glenn had spent the past three nights in houses just outside the walls of Alexandria while Rick stayed inside the iron-walled town. To do the same thing that they were doing. Watching.

"I don't know," Eugene repeated more thoughtfully. In the darkness they could not see his frown or the slow shake of his head. "I only know that we're out here because this is where Rick thinks we need to be."

That was true. This was Rick's idea. Still, the mutual thought, though it was an unexpressed one, was that Rick should have offered to take his turn out here, too. But no one said anything for a while until Eugene spoke up again. "Just what is it that _you_ think we're supposed to be looking for?"

Daryl gave the obvious answer in a laconic undertone. "Any threats outside the walls. If there's something out here at night, we've got no way of knowing from inside."

"And vice versa," Glenn added. There were a lot of other thoughts churning around inside his mind, but he didn't voice any of them.

Maybe it was just walkers they were supposed to be watching for. Maybe it was something else. Whatever Rick's suspicions might be, he kept them to himself. But they hadn't seen a single walker for the past few hours. Not one. The street was silent as a tomb, almost unnaturally so. The same as it was every other night.

"I'd like to think that if there was something better we should be doing – you know, spending our time more wisely - that we'd be doing it," Eugene said. "This seems kind of- redundant."

To himself, Daryl was thinking of plenty of things he'd rather be doing. With Beth. He was also wondering what the hell redundant meant. He hated when Eugene threw out those geek words and left him wondering what he was talking about.

Glenn let out a sigh that seemed to have a fair amount of frustration behind it as well. "Rick's been pretty secretive lately. You think he's hiding something?"

"I don't know about that," Eugene replied. "But I've been wondering if he's even- thinking clearly. His behavior's been a little, uh, erratic."

_Erratic_. Another word straight out of the geek dictionary.

Eugene might have been the only one to put it out in the open like that, but it was the same thing they were all wondering.

"He's not the same person he was," Glenn hedged quietly.

"None of us are," Daryl said in Rick's defense.

"But I've been wondering myself why he wants all three of us out here together night after night for- " Glenn's voice trailed off as he searched for the right word.

Eugene said it for him. "Surveillance." It was the word Rick himself had used. "There's no denying that the more we know, the better off we'll be. But- "

But for three nights in a row now, nothing had moved out there in the street in the shadows of the trees. Where the moonlight filtered through the leaves, it was almost as bright as daylight, but the shadows were a different story. And it was pitch black inside this house, just as it had been in the others. They had switched houses to give themselves a different vantage point each night. The three men could barely see each other's faces as they continued to speak in low tones.

"Sometimes a man goes through things," Daryl said. "And he doesn't come back whole. Sometimes he needs time to work through things."

"Like we all haven't been through hell." Glenn's comment had a trace of bitterness in it, which wasn't like him.

But they all thought that over for a while, and then Daryl said in a husky whisper, "I'm just sayin'."

"I've been having a bad feeling about things lately, too," Eugene admitted after another silence. "I can't say exactly why, but something has been preying on my mind. I just can't figure out what it is." He hesitated before asking another question. "Have you ever wondered what it would be like if we went somewhere else? Maybe headed north where it gets cold in the winter. The walkers would freeze then, don't you think?"

"Wouldn't we freeze, too?" Glenn asked. "And what about when the walkers thaw out again?"

Eugene shook his head uncertainly, though, again, no one could see the movement in the darkness. "But think of an entire winter where there was no threat of walkers. Think what you could accomplish in all that time. I don't know," he said after a frustrated sigh. "I was just thinking, _hoping_, that there might be a better place out there where life isn't so hard, so dangerous. Where people have figured things out. Of course, there could be places that are a lot worse, too."

"What do you think about these new walkers?" Glenn asked the other men. "You've thought about it, haven't you?"

Daryl gave a short grunt of affirmation.

"I can't help but think about it," Eugene answered. "I've overthought everything my entire life. I still do it." It was true enough and sometimes that borderline obsessive trait had made him an outcast. For most of his life people had labeled him a nerd or a geek. And mostly people didn't listen to him. So he had gotten into the habit of keeping his thoughts to himself. But thinking was a way of surviving now. He had an audience and they were waiting for his answer.

"While we don't know what caused all this," he explained in the simplest of terms. "During any plague, viruses and bacteria mutate constantly. Sometimes they even become weaker as the hosts die out."

"You think that's what we're seeing?" Glenn asked. "A weakened form of whatever this is?"

"There's no way of knowing," Eugene admitted. "These could be newly-infected walkers, too. Remember in the beginning? The walkers were a lot faster then, and a lot more active. Maybe we've just forgotten."

"What about the W's?" Daryl asked.

"I do have several theories about that, too," Eugene answered him. "In some places in the world a mark on the forehead meant ownership or property, like a visible sign of loyalty or obedience. Think about a uniform cap. You're showing everyone you belong to a team. It could also be the result of a ritual, something someone has accomplished, like a gang symbol or some kind of rite of passage. Or, maybe the ones making the mark want everyone to know what they've done, so there's no mistaking who their victims are. It could be some kind of territorial marking, or even a warning. To outsiders and to each other."

In the silence, there came only the rasp of Daryl's unshaven face as he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"You think Gabriel will come back?" Glenn asked out of the darkness.

Daryl's hand stopped and he said, "No."

No one said anything after that. Everyone in that room knew that Rick had gone outside after Gabriel had left and only one of them had come back. Everyone knew that Rick considered Gabriel to be a problem. And Rick had developed a cold-blooded way of eliminating his problems.

Finally, Eugene said, as he peered out the window, "It's really quiet out there right now."

"Yeah," Glenn whispered as he joined him at the window. "At the prison, there were always walkers coming up to the fences. They don't do that here."

"Probably because that wall doesn't let them see their dinner right in front of them," Daryl muttered under his breath. "Out of sight, out of-

"Shhh." Daryl's sudden, low warning silenced them both. "Somethin's out there." His clothing rustled as he changed his position at the window.

There were night birds suddenly calling out from the trees and Daryl said, "You hear those birds? Something has got them stirred up to make them so loud." 

* * *

_I shouldn't be doing this._

Logically Maggie knew there was no sane explanation for her behavior. But something completely illogical was driving her. She acknowledged that. She also acknowledged, on a completely different level, that Rick made her feel alive again, and she needed that more than she needed her next breath.

He didn't say a word to her. He never did. It was as if there was a tacit understanding between them. Something primal. Something almost bestial. Rick was rough. He was demanding. And that's just the way she wanted it. It was the way she needed it.

She had discovered that she didn't want promises, or endearments or gentle lovemaking. The way that Glenn treated her paled in comparison to _this_. She wanted Rick to make her forget. Everything. And so she was panting with anticipation even before he tore the clothes from her body and ground an almost punishing kiss down upon her waiting mouth.

* * *

_Carol's brief, tight smile fooled everyone else,_ but it didn't fool Tara. Tara had seen what the woman was capable of. Carol had become a master of disguise. She wore her own brand of camouflage in the very midst of these people. She became one of them, blended in so well that they were blithely unaware of the danger that was standing right in their midst. It was just like a hunter wearing an animal skin while he walked among the herd before singling out a victim.

Tara understood full well that you had to wall yourself off to a certain degree to survive in this world. That you had to shield your emotions. Vulnerability, like hesitation or uncertainty, could get you killed in an instant. Just as mercy was oftentimes scorned and looked upon as being a weakness. By this group at least. They even seemed proud of having left those things behind them and sometimes, Tara admitted to herself, she was more than a little troubled by that.

As she watched Carol smile and pass out cookies, she told herself that she was glad she hadn't lost all her honesty and innocence the way that some of these people had. It seemed to her to be a very great loss. As Carol laughed and then dipped her head in a shy, almost subservient manner, even flirted, Tara shook her head slightly. Given time, she wondered, would she become like Carol? She would be loyal to the group, of course, but how far would she be expected to go?

* * *

_Rick had not planned on having sex with Maggie_. It had just happened. Just like you didn't plan on encountering a walker. It just came at you out of nowhere. There was that rush of adrenaline. You reacted without thought. You did what you had to do. And then it was over.

He didn't regret it. He didn't know if he was even capable of that emotion any more. Maggie was willing, more than willing, and he couldn't see a damned reason why he shouldn't take advantage of that. There were few pleasures in this world. Why would he turn his back on the ones that did come his way? He was still a man, wasn't he? With a man's needs?

As Rick staggered along the main street of Alexandria, deserted now with the fall of darkness, he knew he'd had too much to drink. But hell, what difference did it make? Nothing wrong with forgetting all his worries for a while. Sure it was just a temporary distraction, but temporary was good enough these days.

As he stalked through the shadows, he thought about Gabriel's final moments. He re-lived the look of shock on Gabriel's face when he had seen the blood and the ghoulish interior of the house. It had even shaken him the first time he'd seen it. It had answered some questions, while it left others unanswered. But it was enough. Enough to give him an edge. It was information he would use when the time was right.

Rick sank down on a bench at the end of the park and sprawled his long legs out before him. He needed a moment, just a moment, to sober up a little. The whiskey was hitting him hard all of a sudden.

He shoved the hair back from his face, threw his head far back and let out a long, groaning sigh. Then he tried to focus. Yeah, some things had been answered in that house, though he hadn't shared those answers with anyone. He kept it all to himself. And just like in the shadows of the tree-lined park that surrounded him, there were still things that remained hidden in the darkness in other places. Things that he refused to see, mostly because they were inconvenient things. He did not realize that the greatest battle was inside himself. That it always had been. He didn't know that his final surrender came with the justification of all his dark deeds. Or that his outward rage sprang from the ultimate internal struggle that festered inside himself at all times like a great churning caldron.

He shook his head to clear it as he looked down at the ground between his boots. Surprisingly, a rare moment of clarity did come, like a patch of blue sky on a very cloudy, very stormy day.

He knew, deep inside him, that it had always been a question of good versus evil. From the very beginning. The mantle of authority that had become such a burden to him had become the final nail. It could have guided him and led him in a completely different direction, but the one he chose sealed his fate. For when the pressures of the outside world caused his inner turmoil to become too great, he was able to spin his self-contempt outward, like a far-flung nebulous so that it resided elsewhere. So that he had _victims _to carry it all.

Unfortunately, he never realized that it just became a multiplying of his sins. There was a great hollow deep inside him as there is in all men who focus their energy in the wrong direction. Rick, like all lost men, spent a good deal of his time desperately trying to fill that hollow with imitations, no matter what the cost to his soul.

But he never saw it. He still felt that his life should have stayed as it had been from the beginning. Easy. Simple. Uncomplicated. Instead, it had become something different and he raged impotently that he had been dealt an unfair hand and that he had been forced to make choices that no man should have to make. It had made him bitter and far more than that. If the blood of innocents stained his hands, that was hardly his fault. In a world of wolves, he consoled himself that he was not the worst of them. Little did he realize that even before everything had fallen apart, he had been wavering and that his fall was merely a matter of _when_, not _if_. For there was no replacement among the stones for faith. Not a single one.

* * *

_Once there had been confining restraints,_ rules and regulations. On life. On society. On her. Now? Now she had tasted the heady power that came from throwing the restraints off and breaking the old rules. Long ago she had learned how to play a role with Ed. It had meant survival then. Playing a role still meant survival. She could be cold. She could be cunning. She could be calculating. She had even surprised herself when she realized just how easily and how thoroughly she could fool people. She was that good at it.

But one thing she could not be was patient. As hard as she tried, she could not be a silent bystander anymore and relive her own past by watching another family torn apart by abuse. She was so afraid of losing control, or being reminded of losing the control that she had gained, that it dominated all her thoughts and all her actions. She was fixated on _not_ being a victim again. At all costs. Even if she was merely reminded of that old life through someone else.

As she walked through the darkness, lost in the anonymity of the deserted street, she suddenly stopped short. There, sprawled on a bench before her, was Rick. Alone and unexpected. An unmoving, silent extension of the shadows.

She approached him and halted close enough to stand within his shadow. Without saying a word, she tilted her head as she stared down at him. It wasn't necessary for them to immediately speak their thoughts. They seemed to instinctively understand each other.

Finally Rick said, almost contemptuously, although there was a kind of ominous quality running through his words, "They're living in some kind of vacuum here. Sooner or later reality is going to set in."

Carol nodded slowly, agreeing with him. But she had her own slightly-adjusted way of looking at things. "They're different from us. They haven't been through what we've been through."

He stretched his legs out further as he made himself more comfortable, and folded his arms across his chest. "It's just a matter of time before we have an all-out war," he said without looking at her. He was looking down the street instead. "You know that."

Secretly, she reveled in the thought that he confided in her this way as he confided in no one else. They shared something deep. They had a special bond. He trusted her. And she was proud that she had earned that trust. Sure, he had abandoned her once. But he had taken her back in when she had redeemed herself. Without realizing it, she, herself, was reacting to her own years of conditioning and sliding into old patterns. She had developed the capacity for readily forgetting the searingly-bad things that had happened in the past and taking in the good like a desert absorbs life-giving water after a dry season. It was just another form of survival, one that worked especially well in this world, too.

There was a change in her eyes as she continued to stare down at him. There was open longing. Desire rose, so strong and so sudden that it shook her like a storm wind. Whether he was aware of it or not, she didn't know. She had felt herself drawn to him more and more with each passing day, just like a tide is pulled helplessly, but relentlessly, towards a harsh and rocky shore. The sexual attraction had surprised her at first, but it also gave her a powerful sense of control. She felt, for the first time, like she was choosing to be a woman with sexual urges rather than having someone else dictate that facet of her life for her. It was like an awakening for her. A revelation. The force of Rick, the dominance of him, all had their effect on her and for a second she envisioned taking the ultimate control and throwing herself shamelessly at him. Right there in the street. A thing she would never have even considered in her past life.

The park would hide them. The shadows were deep. And if anyone saw, that excited her too. They would know that she was a desirable woman. She would even do things for Rick that she had never done for Ed. She would drive him over the edge with her tongue and her mouth until he was begging her for release. Her erotic imaginings had been dominating all her thoughts lately. Day and night. In fact, she wanted to turn fantasy into reality so badly that-

"And I intend to win that war," he interrupted her thoughts with his own, slurring his words slightly.

She realized he had no idea where her wayward thoughts had taken her. She knew, too, that he had been drinking. But didn't that give her an edge? Didn't it bolster her courage?

Of course he intended to win, she thought as she watched him more openly. What other choice would an alpha male like Rick make? she thought as she sat down on the bench beside him.

"Gabriel didn't come back," she said, her loyalty and devotion to Rick driving her now. She had found that those things strengthened the bond between them and filled her own empty heart. Loyal was the only way she could be towards him. She felt she owed him her devotion, and so much more.

When Rick remained silent, his non-reaction did not surprise her. Gabriel had gone outside the wall earlier. So had Rick. Only one of them had come back. After voicing their concerns about the man these past few days, Carol could not help but wonder. But she would let Rick make the decision to share any information with her if he chose to do so.

"Some of the others want to go look for him tomorrow," she informed him. She thought he needed to know that.

"They can look all they want," he said with a deep sigh of unconcern. "You know as well as I do that he had no business going outside by himself and possibly putting other people at risk if they do decide to search for him." Then, after a deep, drunken belch, Rick said flatly, "He should already have been dead by now. We're the only reason he survived as long as he did." His eyes shifted over towards Carol with almost a hint of challenge in them. It was not directed towards her, of course. He was referring only to the situation.

"You're right." She agreed wholeheartedly with everything he said. "We did keep him alive. He should have been grateful for that. Instead- " Her voice trailed off as she left the thought unspoken. She didn't want to talk about Gabriel anymore.

"I can't let anyone ruin things for us." Rick was watching her closely now and she wondered if he found her attractive in the moonlight. Rick didn't make her feel plain and old and shabby-looking the way that Ed had. She couldn't help wondering, too, if he was feeling as excited by their nearness as she was feeling. It was almost a palpable thing in the darkness. In fact, she had to close her hands into tight fists to keep from reaching out for him. The sexual tension couldn't be one-sided, could it? If he touched her, just once, she was going to melt into a pool of liquid want at his feet.

"Remember the prison?" he reminded her in a low voice and a tone she found extremely intimate and sexy. "We were trying to peacefully exist there. And what happened? Someone tried to take it all away from us." She noted how he emphasized the word _us_ as if it had been just the two of them. "Sometimes we have to make hard decisions to protect people that we care about from people who want to steal from us. Not everyone understands that like we do."

She did understand that. Except that in her old life she had never thought she had anything worth taking. That had changed. Now Rick was talking like she really mattered, like she was part of his decision-making process. Like she was an important part of his past. And his present.

True, for an infinitesimal moment, the memory of Rick casting her outside the prison and setting her adrift on her own flashed inside her mind. But that thought immediately went back to where it came from as she re-buried it deeply in the past. He wasn't like that anymore. No, he needed her. He _wanted_ her here with him.

"We both know how bad the world can be," Rick went on as his arm snaked along the bench behind her thin, sweater-clad shoulders. "And these people are going to learn that lesson, too, sooner or later. Better at our hands," he said meaningfully as he held her gaze. "And better them than us." He looked deeply into her worshipful eyes that held a faint reflection of the distant stars. "How far are you willing to go?"

"As far as we have to go," she told him. "As far as they make us go."

"We can make this easy on them," he said quietly. "There is a way."


	24. Chapter 24

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 9_**

* * *

"These people have an agenda. They haven't offered to take us in, feed us, clothe us, house us out of the goodness of their hearts." Rick looked around the room, watching closely to see who was with him, and who was not. It was an important detail to know.

Seated across from him, Carol kept her eyes on Rick. She, alone, knew what his plan was. They were about to take another step. Cross another line. One that gave her a kind of anxious, breathless feeling inside. But this was Rick. She would follow him wherever he led her.

"He's right," she said, backing Rick up. "I don't trust them, either."

"These people haven't survived this long by baking cookies and throwing cocktail parties," Rick went on. "And these past few nights, all the surveillance has been about trying to find out exactly what it is they're hiding."

"And?" Michone asked low-voiced from across the dimly-lit room. There was something new in her eyes as she looked at Rick. Something that hadn't been there before.

"And we trusted the people at Terminus," Rick answered her. "Look where that got us. We found out what _they_ were hiding when it was too late. We tried to compromise with the Governor. That didn't work out, either. This time," he paused for effect as his gaze slowly swept the group. "_This_ time is going to be different. We're going to make the first move."

"You still haven't told us what it is you think they're hiding." It was Michone who persisted in asking the difficult questions.

"Does it matter?" Rosita spoke up. She had a bad feeling about what they were about to do to gain control, whatever it was, but she had a worse feeling about exposing it all to the light of day. "I'm tired of running," she said. "Where would we go if we can't stay here? We already know how bad it is out there. How many of us have to die?"

It was easy to see that every single member of the group, in this room at least, had already decided to follow Rick. Rosita didn't feel that there was anything to be gained by being the only one who refused to do that. With Rick leading them, they were going to do this anyway. Whether she agreed or not, it made no difference whatsoever in the final outcome. Even more importantly, how would they treat _her _if she decided not to go along with them? She would be an outcast and everyone knew how dangerous that was in this world.

Carol stepped in again to help justify Rick's plan, even though the details were still being kept secret. "These people have no idea what it's like out there, or what we've been through. Or how desperate things can get. How long do you think it will be before someone else tries to take what they have? That's going to affect _us_, too. I think the people here have been living on borrowed time already."

"We shouldn't make this decision without talking it over with the others." It was Michone again.

"We _can_ make it," Rick told her. "We have no choice but to make it. They'll just have to decide to go along with us. You don't question orders when you're in a war."

Sasha nodded darkly and said from her corner, "That's right. We're fighting a war. I lost everything I ever cared about. Now it's time for them to lose something."

There was a drawn-out period of silence, then Maggie said, "Beth won't go along with this." She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. "I know she won't."

As she plucked absently at a button on her sweater, Carol said, without looking at anyone, "Beth doesn't have to know. Until it's over with."

That's why Daryl wasn't there. Because Beth and Daryl always decided things together. Glenn wasn't there, either. Maggie had made the decision to exclude him because she thought he would cause trouble. Tara had been left out, as well.

Michone stayed silent as she frowned down at the carpet between her boots. She wanted to stay at Alexandria. She wanted it maybe more than anyone. She didn't know the details of Rick's plan because he was keeping them to himself for now. She took that as a bad sign. Of course she knew that survival meant that sacrifices would have to be made. Didn't it always? But she wasn't going to go along with hurting the kids if that's what Rick had in mind. Carol, however? She wasn't sure about her. She had killed children before. She had killed members of their own group. She had crossed a line and maybe she couldn't go back again. As for Carol's new-found devotion to Rick? It seemed to border on something sick and pathetic.

"We have to survive," Rick said as he looked around at each person in turn. "It's us or them. It's that simple. We didn't ask for this. We were _forced_ into this war," he went on, his voice lowering to a low, persuasive rasp. "We're _all_ casualties. We were wounded, every single one of us, and we bear scars. Deep scars. But it's a matter of survival of the strongest. And we _are_ strong. Stronger than these people are. We can't change what happened in the past, but we can sure as hell grab hold of the present. We're a family. We stick together. That's what families do."

And so they took his words with them and justified. They went back to their houses, each deep in thought, each trying to find restitution for whatever it was they were going to be asked to do.

* * *

_ "I didn't think she was capable of this."_

Just the fact that Glenn was sitting here by himself on a swing in the park had drawn her. There in the early morning light, despite the fragile courage that had upheld her so far, Glenn's husky words cut a pathway straight to Tara's core. Rooted to the spot by the agony reflected in his gaze, she turned her face away for a moment.

"Did you know?" she heard.

When she looked back, she knew immediately that she had already failed miserably at maintaining an illusion of ignorance. She _had_ known. And now he knew that she knew.

"Did you know?" he repeated, his gaze unwavering as he searched her face. He had the hopeless look of a man who had lost everything. His words filtered through her own pain, because what he felt affected her, too. Would he blame her for not telling him? That was the thought that was uppermost in her mind. She looked down at him, knowing that she owed him the truth at least, but dreading what it could do to their friendship.

Somehow, eventually, she gathered enough courage to nod her head. "Yes, I figured it out a while ago."

Glenn's jaw hardened. It was his turn to nod. When he finally did speak, there was a trace of bitterness, and more, in his voice. "Did you ever want something so badly that you closed your eyes and pretended that you had it, when in fact it wasn't anything near what you believed it was?"

She sat down on a swing beside him. "I- " she began. "Don't we all do that sometimes?"

He let his breath out in a scoffing, self-condemning laugh. "Probably. But we have to open our eyes eventually and face the truth. No matter how ugly it might be."

"So- are you going back out there tonight?" she asked after a silence. She had to ask.

"It's what they expect me to do."

Tara turned to look at Glenn. What she had heard in his voice, and what she saw in his face now, sent a chill straight through her.

* * *

_ "You're going back out there tonight?" _Beth dropped her hands to her sides after she undid her hair. She frowned after Daryl's affirmative grunt.

"Have you seen or heard _anything_ at all?" she asked.

"Just some damned birds."

"It seems like you're spending a lot of time bird watching. How does Glenn feel about it?"

"Glenn?" Daryl echoed. "He's like a powder keg about to go off."

Still frowning, Beth said in an undertone, "That's not like him."

"It is now," Daryl commented under his breath. He didn't tell Beth all that he knew. After all, Maggie was her sister. But he supposed that eventually the truth was going to come out.

"There's something going on," Beth went on. "I know it. Something we're being kept in the dark about."

"I feel that way, too," Daryl sighed. "I just don't know what it is."

It was true. There was something going on. Besides the thing with Rick and Maggie. He could feel it in his gut.

"Have you tried to talk to Rick?"

Daryl had just showered and he raked his fingers through his wet hair. "I have."

"And?" Beth asked.

"And he had nothing to say to me besides ordering me around. Rick's got his own agenda."

"After- everything, do you still think he's the right person to be leading us?"

"No," Daryl answered her right off. "Things haven't been right for a long time."

He went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of water.

"Well," she said as she watched him drink. "It seems to me like you're spending a lot of time bird watching when you could be doing something a lot more- productive."

He walked over to her and braced his hands on the wall behind her, trapping her there. He looked down at her. "You know you're not going to get an argument from me about that." He gave her a slow, sexy smile. "But there's nothing that says I have to be on time. The birds won't mind."

* * *

_ It made no sense to her that Rick had decided_ not to help look for Gabriel. They never left anyone behind. A long time ago, Tara had realized that she had made a critical error in judgment. She had agreed to split up. She had stayed out too long, walked too far, gotten lost and worse than that, she had been cut off by walkers, which had gotten her even more turned around. And now? Now she was alone and there still was no sign of Gabriel. It was growing dark and she admitted to herself that she was more than a little afraid.

She wanted to believe that someone would come and look for her. But with part of the group staying up all night and having to sleep during the day, that didn't seem likely. Unless . . .

She shook her head. She was going to have to help herself and not wait for someone else to rescue her. What good was waiting for help going to do? How could anyone even find her if they were looking? No one knew where she was. No one knew what direction she had taken. It had taken every bit of her skill and instinct just to try and find her way back in the general direction of Alexandria. Cut off as she had been by walkers, it had been no easy feat.

_ Think_, Tara. You need to think your way out of this. _Before_ the sun goes down. Before-

The attack came suddenly and without warning. The walker was right behind her, but she didn't hear the wheezing rasp of rattling breath until it was too late. She spun around as the walker shuffled straight for her with its loose-jointed gait and reached for her with vicious snarls and flailing arms. Clawing wildly at the loose material of her shirt, the walker managed to snag the strap that hung down between her breasts. He tore at the sagging, worn leather and got the loose length of it caught between the rotted flesh of his thumb and middle finger. What was left of them.

Almost panicking, Tara sucked in her breath and instinctively tried to jerk away. But the walker was caught fast and he went down with her to the ground, the back of his grey knuckles dragging across her bare breasts where they rose in the open V of her shirt.

She had fallen onto a board when she hit the ground and pain shot through her shoulder as a nail punctured the fleshy part of her upper arm. It wasn't a bad wound but it immediately began to bleed profusely. Still, she was lucky. So far she hadn't been bit, but the walker was lying half-way on top of her, snarling and writhing savagely in its attempts to take a bite out of her.

Everything was a blur. Everything was in slow motion. One minute she was trapped, but the next she managed to roll to her side and get away. It was a miraculous, unexpected escape.

She scrambled to her feet. She was panting hard, half from fear, half from adrenaline.

She felt wetness and saw that blood already dampened half the sleeve of her shirt.

The walker was flailing about and pissed off. Really pissed off as it eyed her. But it hadn't been able to get back to its feet yet. She knew that wasn't going to last long.

With her pulse pounding like a freight train, Tara ran. Straight for the house. The walker was on its feet again, and headed right for her.

She reached for the door handle. She turned it in a blind panic and pulled, but the door was stuck. She pulled again, with all her might this time. Nothing. She realized her mistake and pushed. When the door swung open, the unexpected action threw her forward and she crashed headlong over the threshold.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, what she saw held her there motionless. The sickening, horrific scene before her seemed to paralyze all her muscles. She had found Gabriel.


	25. Chapter 25

**The Shadows and the Roses**

**Part III**

**The Awakening**

**_Chapter 10_**

* * *

They were outside the walls of Alexandria again, watching from yet another house. Only this time, there were going to be four of them. They had one of the citizens of Alexandria with them, a man named Preston Timmel. Rick's explanation for that was he wanted to know how the townspeople would react in a surveillance situation.

"Where's Daryl?" Eugene asked. "It's not like him to be late."

Glenn didn't answer. He was standing, leaning back against a wall and staring at the floor like he had something else on his mind. There was no indication that he hadn't even heard Eugene's question.

"Looks like it was a waste of time searching for that preacher," Preston said. "And that girl is still out there. You think she's in some kind of trouble?"

Glenn straightened. "What girl?"

"The quiet one with the dark hair," was Preston's answer.

"You mean Tara?" Glenn was frowning as he asked the question. He was completely focused now.

"Yeah, that one," Preston replied. "She left earlier with some of _your_ group. The others came back a long time ago. She's the only one still out there."

"And you're telling us this _now_?" Glenn was clearly shaken by the news.

"It wasn't my business," Preston replied defensively. "She knew what she was getting herself into. She knew the danger out there. Why would I interfere with what you people do?" Getting involved with these people didn't always have a happy ending. Anyone could see that.

Daryl finally showed up. He stood in the doorway and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Tara," Glenn answered. "She went out earlier with some of the others to look for Gabriel. She didn't come back. The others did."

"Rick knew she was going," Preston informed them in an effort to shift responsibility to someone else. It certainly wasn't _his_ responsibility. "He was at the gate with them when they left. Shouldn't he have kept track of everyone? I figured if he was worried, he would have done something by now."

"Rick." Glenn growled the name almost ominously. Then he muttered something more under his breath that the others couldn't catch. "When'd they leave?"

"A long time ago," Preston replied. "Hours."

"Who else went out there with her?" Daryl asked.

"Abraham went. Lowell and Kyle went. And so did Rosita. But they all came back already."

"They all left together?" Glenn wanted to know.

"Uh huh, but they didn't all come back at the same time."

"Shit," Daryl rasped. "She wouldn't stay out there alone in the dark unless something's wrong."

"What the hell is that?" It was Preston who suddenly asked the question. He rubbed his eyes and stared harder out the window.

"That's no walker," Eugene said as he, too, leaned closer to the window.

"Is that her?" Preston asked, straining his eyes to see in the deepening shadows.

"No," Glenn answered. "It's a woman, but it's not Tara."

"We've got to turn her back before she gets to the gate."

Everyone turned to look at Preston who had made the startling statement.

"Turn her back?" Eugene echoed, confused.

"What do you mean?" Daryl asked.

"She can't be allowed inside," Preston went on as if the others should have already come to the same decision.

"You mean you don't think we should let her in?" Eugene queried incredulously.

"We don't let anyone in unless we've watched them for a while to make sure they're safe," Preston said.

"She could die out there," Daryl said.

"You've heard of Trojan horses, haven't you?" Preston asked them all. "No one gets inside unless they're invited."

"And you can live with turning people away?" Daryl wanted to know. "Even if you're signing their death warrant?"

"It's the only way _we_ can live," Preston answered him. "What if we did let her in with no questions asked. And then some night we're all asleep in our beds and she opens the gate and before we can do anything about it, we're overrun by w- " His last word ended in a choking gurgle as Daryl twisted his fist in the man's shirt front.

"There's a kid out there with her," Daryl hissed.

"They've survived somehow for this long," Preston sputtered. "Right now we don't know how."

"So that's been your policy all along?" Daryl asked.

"We've had to deal with threats like this in the past," Preston informed him. "So, yeah, that's our policy. This could very well be a set up. She's not what she appears to be. She's hiding something. I'd bet my life on it."

"Look," Eugene whispered. "There's walkers trailing them in the darkness."

"We'll get them in _here_ first," Daryl decided. "Despite your _policy_. Eugene, you keep them here in this house till we get back. We'll deal with this then. Right now we need to find Tara."

"You mean you're going to go out there _now_?" Preston asked Daryl in surprise. "In the dark?"

"If we wait till morning," Daryl said grimly. 'There not be anything left to find."

* * *

Rick took Carol's hand and turned it over. He placed a small plastic bag on her palm and closed her fingers around it.

Looking into her eyes, he said, "_That's_ how we're going to do this."

Carol was still listening as she held the bag up to the moonlight and frowningly inspected its contents.

"That," Rick said, indicating the bag and what was inside of it. "Is going to give us all the edge that we need. You feed small amounts of that to someone over a period of time, and they become so messed up in their head, they don't know what's real and what isn't."

When Carol didn't comment right away, he asked, "You're still with me on this, aren't you?"

She looked at him and nodded, surprised that he would even question her loyalty.

"Are you sure it will work?" she wanted to know.

"I've seen it work in the past," Rick assured her. He gave her a single dark, lingering sidelong glance, and then he turned his face and stared off into the darkness for a while as if he was envisioning something only he could see. Carol, watching his profile, waited for him to explain further.

"Shane would have killed me a long time ago if I hadn't used that on him. I couldn't just sit around and wait for him to stab me in the back when I wasn't expecting it. Shane was trained to fight, the same as I was. And he was good at it. I needed an edge."

"So that's why . . . That's why his behavior was becoming so erratic," Carol whispered to herself, remembering separate incidents and then putting them together piece by piece. "You poisoned Shane?" she finally asked wide-eyed. "With _this_?"

"He was fucking my wife," Rick told her bluntly as if that explanation alone sufficed. "He wanted me out of the way. It was just a matter of time before he tried to get rid of me and take away everything that was mine. So I got rid of him first. It was the only way the group could survive."

* * *

_Carl had a strange sense of déjà vu._ It was as if the past had suddenly and without warning come back to life again. With full-color, 3D realism. It took him by surprise, stopped him dead in his tracks. He had thought that he had shoved those memories so far down in the darkness that they were long dead and buried, never to surface again. But when he passed the house in the darkness and he heard the shouts and the arguing, the anger and the accusations, it felt very much like the past was alive again, resurrected just like a walker.

He had been too afraid then to stand up to his father. He still carried guilt around with him. Guilt that he had not stopped it all. Guilt that he had not protected his mother. Guilt that self-preservation had been first and foremost in his mind. But there wasn't anything he could do to change the past at this point. There was no going back.

And it made him angry now, right there where he stood, to think that his father was acting so self-righteous, that he was so focused on protecting this Jesse person, a virtual stranger to him, when he himself had been so abusive to his own family. Carl couldn't help feeling that it was a betrayal to his mother. And to him.

It had all escalated, of course, over the years. It had become more violent and more unpredictable as time went on. And no one knew. To the outside world his father had presented something very different from what he had been inside the home. There had been a darkness in him even then, although he'd had some control over it back then. Only now that darkness seemed to be growing to uncontainable proportions. And every day he seemed to be losing more and more control.

Maybe his mother _had_ turned to Shane. Shane was around a lot in those days. After what she'd endured all those years, Carl could hardly blame her. Maybe his father's accusations had been true. Still, no matter what the circumstances, a real man didn't hit women and Carl remained deeply, profoundly sorry that he had not been courageous enough or strong enough to stop the physical blows any more than he could stop the emotional ones.

* * *

After Tara slammed the door behind her, she stared at the thing before her. It was Gabriel's head. But it was attached to someone else's body. A very pale male body that was completely, starkly naked and stretched out on a wooden, blood-stained table. She could see the black stitches encircling Gabriel's neck where it was attached to the body. And further down, was the equally black mat of hair framing the sexual organs. Gabriel's eyes were open and he was looking at her, but through walker eyes. His mouth was opening and closing and she heard the snap of his teeth. But his body didn't move at all. The hands, with the palms turned upward, lay limp at his sides.

She stayed wary as she looked around the room. There were hospital-type beds covered by white sheets. Other bodies were lying on them. Or just body parts. There were beakers and test tubes, surgical instruments, and what looked like surgical machines. And blood. There was a lot of blood everywhere. It was like some kind of sick Frankenstein laboratory.

There was another man, naked also, who was tied to a wooden chair. Either he was dead or he was unconscious because he wasn't moving. His head was hanging so far forward that his chin was resting on his chest. But the crude W carved into his forehead was plainly visible. It must have bled profusely because dried blood ran down into the man's eyes, and past them to his bearded cheeks.

The door suddenly burst open behind her. She whirled around, expecting to see the walker who had been thumping against it in its efforts to get to her. But it wasn't the walker. Two men entered the room and both looked equally surprised to see her.

"Well," one of the men said as he looked Tara over. "I wasn't expecting this. But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth."

The man in the chair stirred, moaned.

"Take care of him," the man closest to Tara ordered.

Grabbing hold of the bound man's hair, the other man pulled his head back sharply. It exposed his white throat below the dark beard. Tara watched in horror as the man drew a knife along the seated man's throat, which brought forth a gush of blood, a sickening gurgle and almost immediate death as the man slumped forward again.

The other man was watching Tara closely. The light was fading fast which cast his coarse features into shadow, but she saw his mouth spread wide into a chilling smile. "Like I said, I wasn't expecting this." He began taking off his pants. "But now that that's taken care of, we can concentrate on getting acquainted."

The man went on undressing. When his pants were gone, he stood before her, displaying the blatant evidence of his arousal. She backed away. "Hey, it's your choice, honey," he said. "You can make this easy. Or you can make it hard."

The other man snickered. "She's going to get it hard one way or another."

"Clear off one of those beds." The first man ordered with a jerk of his head. The second man immediately obeyed.

Tara knew she had to get away from these men. No matter what it took. She watched tensely as the first man picked up a whiskey bottle, tipped it to his mouth and took several long swallows. Not once did he take his eyes off of her.

"Yeah, we're going to get to know each other real well," he said as he lowered the bottle and began to unbutton his shirt.

When the shirt was gone, Tara backed up as the man advanced towards her. With her back against the wall, and with nowhere else to go, she struck without warning. Reacting out of sheer desperation, she did some immediate damage with a well-placed knee. Then she swept the man's leg out from beneath him with a determined kick, a self-defense maneuver Glenn had taught her. She was glad now that he had made her practice so much. Of course, fighting against a fully-aroused, naked man was much, much different than practicing with Glenn.

The man collapsed to the ground with a prolonged howl of rage and a string of vile curses. He called her every foul word she had ever heard, and then some. Terrified, and knowing that the man's fury would eventually be directed at her, Tara didn't even stop to think. She grabbed a small stool, raised it with her arms and with all her terror behind it, swung it at the head of the other man who was now threatening her.

She knew she hit him with one of the metal legs. She heard the sound of the impact. He hadn't been expecting it and he was reeling from the blow. He stumbled backwards, tripped, then went down hard, right on top of the other man who was still struggling to get to his feet.

Realizing this might be her only opportunity to escape, Tara pulled the door open. She made no mistake this time. The door swung inward and banged back hard on its hinges. Just as soon as she stepped over the threshold, an iron hand snaked out, snagging her wrist and jerking her hard against a solid male chest.


End file.
